IOPC complaint volume · 2024/25
Complaints logged per 1,000 employees
IOPC · 2024/25Complaints per 1,000 employees · the IOPC's own size-adjusted rate
348vs national average of 373
City of London is 7% below the national average for complaints logged per 1,000 employees in 2024/25. This rate controls for force size, so it can be compared directly between forces - raw volume cannot.
Allegations per 1,000 employees · Table 5, the finer-grained metric
444vs national average of 660
An allegation is a single specific accusation; a single complaint case can contain several. City of London recorded 713 allegations across 570 complaint cases (≈1.3 allegations per case), 33% below the national average on the per-1,000 rate.
Genuinely distinct from the case-level rate above: that counts how many people complained; this counts the discrete accusations within those complaints.
- Complaint cases logged
- 570
- Workforce (FTE)
- 1,606
- Share of national total
- 0.6%
Complaint-handling timeliness (Table 3, working days)
- Days to log complaint
- 6vs 7 nat'l
- Days to contact complainant
- 4vs 9 nat'l
National averages: 7 days to log, 9 days to contact. Most forces cluster within 1–10 days on both.
Reasons recorded under Schedule 3 (Table 4, % of 52 cases)
National: 24/40/20/16
- Nature of allegation
Mandatory by type
- 17%
nat'l 24% · 7pp below
- Body decides
Force's own choice
- 38%
nat'l 40% · 2pp below
- Complainant wishes
Person asked formally
- 6%
nat'l 20% · 14pp below
- After dissatisfaction
Only after push-back
- 38%
nat'l 16% · 22pp above
This describes process - how each case came to be formally recorded - not severity or outcome. None of these categories is automatically good or bad in isolation.
How allegations were finalised (Table 14, % of finalised allegations)
National: 44/45/11
- Outside Schedule 3
Informal / other means
- 81%
nat'l 44% · 37pp above
- Sched 3, not investigated
Recorded but not investigated
- 13%
nat'l 45% · 32pp below
- Sched 3, investigated
Recorded and investigated
- 6%
nat'l 11% · 5pp below
This is a procedural breakdown - how the force resolved its allegations - not a severity or outcome judgement. A high "investigated" share is not automatically better, and a high "outside Schedule 3" share is not automatically worse; both can be appropriate depending on the complaint mix. Distinct from Table 4 above: that asks why a case was formally recorded; this asks how the resulting allegations were ultimately resolved.
What happens when someone challenges the outcome
IOPC reviews · Tables 26 & 27
Independent IOPC review applications and outcomes
When a complainant disagrees with how the force handled their case, they can ask the IOPC to review it independently. The IOPC either runs a paper review or escalates to a full investigation. In either path, the review can find the force's original decision was not reasonable and proportionate - i.e. overturned. Nationally, 29.8% of valid completed reviews are overturned - nearly 1 in 3.
Overall overturn rate · this force
Too few cases for a meaningful rate
Only 3 validly completed reviews in 2024/25, of which 1 were overturned. Below the 10-case threshold we use before quoting a percentage, because one or two cases would swing the number wildly.
Reviews NOT escalated (paper review)
1 overturned of 1 valid · too few for a meaningful rate
Reviews escalated to investigation
0 overturned of 2 valid · too few for a meaningful rate
Counts: 4 review applications received in 2024/25 · 75% escalated to a full investigation.
This is the IOPC's own independent judgement on the quality of this force's complaint-handling decisions - distinct from volume, rate, timeliness, recording reason, or finalisation method. A percentage is shown only when the underlying sample is at least 10 valid completed reviews; below that, we show raw counts and flag the sample as too small.
Source: IOPC, Police complaints statistics for England and Wales 2024/25, Tables 26 & 27 · Financial year 2024/25.
Caveat: Includes Action Fraud cases (City of London Police is the national lead for economic crime reporting). Not directly comparable to other forces.
What this is and isn't. This counts complaints logged - not their severity, outcome, or whether they were upheld. A high rate can reflect under-confidence in informal resolution or proactive logging as much as worse behaviour; a low rate can reflect genuinely low complaint volume or under-recording. Treat as one signal, not a verdict.
The IOPC also publishes per-force quarterly bulletins with a "most similar force" comparison. The headline volume, rate and timeliness figures shown here come from the annual report; the fuller per-force bulletins live at the source link below.
Source: IOPC, Police complaints statistics for England and Wales 2024/25 · Financial year 2024/25. Workforce denominator: Home Office Police Workforce, 31 March 2024.