Activism and impartiality
Part of: Police ethics and accountability
On 1 September 2023, the then Home Secretary commissioned HMICFRS to carry out an inspection into the extent to which police involvement in politically contested matters may be having an impact on the effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy of operational policing, by influencing policing policy, priorities and practice.
Our report
In our inspection we examined several things:
- the police’s policies, processes and decision-making;
- how officers are trained;
- the police’s work with external advisory groups;
- how police deal with non-crime hate incidents;
- the police’s communication with the public; and
- whether there are any systemic problems that interfere with police impartiality.
We reviewed over 4,000 documents and held interviews and focus groups with over 400 officers, staff and members of other organisations. We examined the records of 120 non-crime hate incidents. We surveyed the police and the public, for which we received over 4,000 responses. And we analysed over 857,000 police social media posts.
We made 22 recommendations to chief constables, police forces and others.