Police force

The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

Introduction

Police forces or constabularies are responsible for operational policing matters
There is a dedicated list of all police forces in the UK listed on WhatDoTheyKnow.com

Police forces in England and Wales

FOIA Schedule 1 lists:

59 - A chief officer of police of a police force in England or Wales.

Section 101 of the Police Act 1996 defines "chief officer of police" to mean one of:

the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
the Commissioner of Police for the City of London
the chief constable of a police area, namely:

Police Forces in Scotland

Scotland has a single territorial police force, the Police Service of Scotland.

The following support services are all covered by FOI apart from ACPOS:

Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS)
Forensic Services
Information Services – Criminal Justice
Information Services – ICT
Scottish Police College

Police Forces in Northern Ireland

61 - The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland

Non-geographic Police Forces

FOIA Schedule I includes:

62 - The British Transport Police
63 - The Ministry of Defence Police established by section 1 of the Ministry of Defence Police Act 1987
63B - The chief constable of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary

However there are other non-geographic police forces:

Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA)
Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)
UK National Wildlife Crime Unit

Armed forces police

(Not to be confused with Ministry of Defence police.)

Royal Navy police (see Royal Navy)
Royal Marines Discipline (see Royal Marines)
Royal Military Police (see British Army)
Royal Air Force Police (see Royal Air Force )

Civilian police forces associate with Ministry of Defence

In addition to the Ministry of Defence police noted above:

Gibraltar Defence Police^[1]
Northern Ireland Security Guard Service (NISGS) - part of the Ministry of Defence^[2]
Sovereign Base Areas Police^[3]

Ports, Waterways, Tunnels and Airport Police

Airport police

Belfast Airport Constabulary

Port police

Tunnels police

Mersey Tunnels Police (see: Merseytravel)

Waterways

British Waterways enforcement officers (each of the regional waterway units has an enforcement team)
Broads authority - river control

Park police

Epping Forest Keepers (see: City of London Corporation)
Hammersmith and Fulham Parks Police (see: Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council)
Hampstead Heath Constabulary (see: City of London Corporation)
Hillingdon Parks Patrol Service (see: Hillingdon Borough Council)
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Parks Police (see Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)
Wandsworth Parks Police (see: Wandsworth Borough Council)

Market police

The City of London market constabularies:

Billingsgate Market Constabulary^[4]
New Spitalfields Market Constabulary^[5]
Smithfield Market Constabulary^[6]

Ceremonial constabularies

Cathedral constabulary

Chester Cathedral Constables
Liverpool Cathedral’s constabulary^[7]
York Minster Police

Kew Constabulary

Kew Constabulary (see: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)

University constabulary

University of Cambridge Constabulary

Bodies with limited police powers

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs
Historic Scotland (In Holyrood Park, the powers of a Royal Parks constable are now reserved to some staff of Historic Scotland)
Independent Police Complaints Commission
Railway companies have certain powers of detention.
Serious Organised Crime Agency
UK Border Agency

Persons with special powers of arrest

Church Wardens (Church of England) [8]

Bodies associated with policing that are not polices forces

The above are not normally considered to be police forces in their own right.

Resources