Force dossier

Devon & Cornwall Police

Eight lenses on this force, live misconduct coverage, official statistics, inspection grades, complaints, resourcing, recorded crime, and how it sits nationally.

01/08Live misconduct coverage (third-party)

Live coverage from a third-party source - see attribution below for source, scope and caveats.

At a glance

Devon & Cornwall Police

Low concernLow concern

Dismissal rate · share of recorded cases ending in dismissal

35.3%

Between 5 February 2021 and 31 January 2026, Devon & Cornwall Police recorded 17 misconduct cases. 6 resulted in dismissal. That is 35.3% of recorded cases. A higher share of recorded misconduct cases result in dismissal.

Cases: 17
Dismissals: 6
Earliest: 5 Feb 2021
Latest: 31 Jan 2026

Show as a table (accessible alternative)

Force	Devon & Cornwall Police
Misconduct cases	17
Dismissed	6
Dismissal rate	35.3%
Period	5 Feb 2021 – 31 Jan 2026
Rating	Low concern

02/08Official Home Office figures (2019/20)

The most recent year for which the Home Office published a per-force breakdown of this specific transparency-ratio dataset. More recent Home Office data exists at the national level (see National Context below) but is not broken down by force. Shown separately from the live coverage above because it has a different source (gov.uk, official) and a different vintage.

Official Home Office figures · 2019/20

Government statistics, historical

Gov.uk · 2019/20

In the year ending 31 March 2020, the Home Office recorded 4 officer dismissals at Devon and Cornwall, with 21 cases going to a public misconduct hearing and 38 resolved quietly through internal management action.

Officer dismissals (Y/E March 2020)

Transparency · share of 59 resolved cases handled in public

35.6%

Higher = more resolved through a public hearing rather than internal management action.

How 59 resolved cases were handled

Public hearing: 21
Resolved quietly: 38

Source: Home Office, Police misconduct in England and Wales · Financial year 2019/20

This is the most recent year for which the Home Office published a per-force breakdown of this specific transparency-ratio measure. More recent Home Office statistics on police misconduct do exist at the national level (see the National Context section below), but are not broken down force-by-force in the same form.

03/08HMICFRS PEEL inspection grades

The inspectorate's own published assessment of the force as an organisation - effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy, pillar by pillar, with any current causes of concern. A different lens again: PEEL is about organisational performance, not individual misconduct, complaint volumes, or crime rates. Placed alongside the official Home Office figures above because both are official regulatory findings about the force.

HMICFRS PEEL assessment · 2025-27

Inspectorate grades for Devon & Cornwall Police

Report 2026-06-03

Pillars rated below Adequate

6/8

Inadequate, Causing Concern, or Requires Improvement.

Pillar grades · sorted worst first

Investigating crime: Inadequate
Safeguarding: Inadequate
Leadership: Requires Improvement
Workforce & diversity: Requires Improvement
Public response: Requires Improvement
Managing fraud: Requires Improvement
Use of powers: Adequate
Prevention & vulnerability: Adequate

2 causes of concern open

Standard2026-06-03Investigating crime - The force hasn't made enough progress in improving the standard of its investigations.
Standard2026-06-03Safeguarding children and adults at risk of harm - The force is failing to effectively safeguard adults and children who are at risk of harm.

Inspector notes

Verified directly against HMICFRS's own published summary table, cross-checked against Police Professional, ITV News West Country, and AOL, 20 June 2026. No Good or Outstanding grade in any of the eight areas. Force was previously in HMICFRS enhanced monitoring (Engage), recently removed.

Source: HMICFRS - official report ↗

04/08IOPC complaints (2024/25)

One panel covering everything the IOPC's 2024/25 annual report says about complaints against this force: the size-adjusted complaint rate, how quickly complaints are logged and complainants contacted, and the mix of reasons each case came to be formally recorded under Schedule 3.

IOPC complaint volume · 2024/25

Complaints logged per 1,000 employees

IOPC · 2024/25

Complaints per 1,000 employees · the IOPC's own size-adjusted rate

198vs national average of 373

Devon and Cornwall is 47% 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

513vs national average of 660

An allegation is a single specific accusation; a single complaint case can contain several. Devon and Cornwall recorded 3,509 allegations across 1,354 complaint cases (≈2.6 allegations per case), 22% 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: 1,354
Workforce (FTE): 6,843
Share of national total: 1.4%

⚠ Major outlier on complaint-handling timeliness

Days to log complaint: 89vs 7 nat'l · 12.7×
Days to contact complainant: 80vs 9 nat'l · 8.9×

Devon and Cornwall takes substantially longer than the national average to log a complaint and to contact the complainant - exceeding three times the national average (7 days to log, 9 days to contact). The IOPC publishes this figure; we don't speculate on the cause.

Reasons recorded under Schedule 3 (Table 4, % of 1,002 cases)

National: 24/40/20/16

Nature of allegation: 10%
Body decides: 86%
Complainant wishes: 2%
After dissatisfaction: 2%

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: 24%
Sched 3, not investigated: 71%
Sched 3, investigated: 6%

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

33.3%of 57 valid completed reviews overturned (19 cases) · national avg 29.8%

Reviews NOT escalated (paper review)

16 overturned of 46 valid · 34.8%

Reviews escalated to investigation

3 overturned of 11 valid · 27.3%

Counts: 60 review applications received in 2024/25 · 18.3% 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.

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.

05/08Resourcing context (workforce + funding)

Two paired panels that together answer the resourcing question: who staffs the force (Home Office workforce data, 2025) and what it is funded with (2026/27 Police Grant Report). Use these to check whether a force's claim to be under-resourced is supported by the numbers. Neither figure is presented as a cause of misconduct or complaint volume elsewhere on the page - they are contextual facts a reader can weigh.

Workforce · Home Office 2025 open data

Who works at Devon & Cornwall Police

Total officers (headcount)

3,686

Profile vs national average (tick = national)

Aged 25 or under

8.1%

300 of 3,686 · national avg 12.8%

Over 55

3.2%

118 of 3,686 · national avg 2.2%

Under 5 years' service

28.4%

1,045 under 5 yrs · 1,640 with 20+ yrs · national avg 32.6%

Sickness absence (FTE)

3.32%

120.04 FTE days lost vs 3617.50 total FTE · national avg 2.3%

Ethnic minority officers

1.7%

62 of 3,686 · national avg 5%

Four contextual layers about the force's workforce: age profile, sickness absence, length of service, and ethnic minority representation. None of these are causal explanations for misconduct or complaint figures on this page - they are facts you can weigh yourself, particularly if a force cites resourcing or inexperience to explain poor performance.

Source: Home Office, Police Workforce, England and Wales (open data tables) · 2025 publication.

Funding · 2026/27 Police Grant Report

What Devon & Cornwall Police is funded with

Funding per head of population

£263

National average £297 · £-34 vs average

+4.2%YoY · nat'l +4.5%£464.1m → £483.5m

Sits alongside the workforce panel: workforce tells you who staffs the force; this tells you what it's funded with. Together they let you check whether a claim of being under-resourced holds up. Funding level is not a causal explanation for misconduct or complaint figures elsewhere on this page.

Of the national £796.1m uplift, 54% comes from central grant and 46% from an assumed £15 council tax precept rise.

Source: Police Grant Report (England and Wales), 2026/27.

06/08Recorded crime context (ONS/Home Office, Y/E Dec 2025)

Different in kind from every other section: this measures what was reported TO the police, not what the police DID. Crime rate is not a performance measure - it can reflect community, demographic and reporting factors as much as anything about the force. The stalking & harassment line is the most directly on-topic comparator for this site's mission.

Recorded crime · ONS/Home Office · Y/E Dec 2025

What was reported to Devon & Cornwall Police

Stalking & harassment · per 1,000

9.8

this forcenational tick

National average ~9.8 per 1,000. Directly on-topic for the stalking-response work.

Total recorded crime · per 1,000

66.1

this forcenational tick

National average 84.8 per 1,000.

Different in kind from every other panel on this page: this is what was reported to the police, not what the police did. A higher rate can reflect more victims coming forward and better recording as much as more actual offending. Crime rate is not a measure of police performance.

Read this alongside, not instead of, the police-conduct panels above. A higher crime rate doesn't excuse poor complaint-handling, and a lower crime rate doesn't validate it, they measure different things. The stalking & harassment line is the most directly on-topic comparator for this site's mission.

Source: ONS / Home Office Police Recorded Crime, Table P3 (year ending December 2025).

07/08Stalking Super-Complaint response

What this specific force has published in answer to the 2022 to 2024 Suzy Lamplugh Trust super-complaint on the police response to stalking. A different question, a different evidence base, the same Devon & Cornwall Police.

Sources: each force's own published page or action-plan document, linked directly on the card below.

What Devon & Cornwall Police has published

Devon and Cornwall Police published a thematic narrative response. The full per-recommendation plan is in the linked PDF; verbatim extracts from the on-page narrative are below.

Stalking reports in Devon and Cornwall increased by 14% in 2023 and are projected to increase during 2024 with an increase in both domestic related stalking and non-domestic stalking reports. In 2023 over two thirds of all stalking crimes in Devon and Cornwall involved an ex-partner.
Verbatim from source
Within Devon and Cornwall Police a network of 70 Stalking Champions is in place, receiving additional training and ongoing professional development supporting the organisation to deliver a quality service.
Verbatim from source
In October 2024, a Cyber Stalking Campaign was launched, this commenced with training delivered by The Cyber Helpline to all DA and Stalking Champions.
Verbatim from source
Devon and Cornwall Police support the recommendation made by the Home Office to bring forward legislation to change the legal framework for Stalking Protection Orders. We are committed to improving the use of the orders whilst recognising the current barriers that exist.
Verbatim from source

CaveatLine-by-line commitments against each numbered recommendation are in the linked PDF action plan, not on the page itself.

For context: live data

These figures come from misconduct999.com, the third-party blog that publishes posts on police misconduct hearings, scraped and aggregated by our backend. It does not measure the stalking response directly, that data is not publicly available per force, so treat the two panels as a starting point for further questions, not a verdict.

Cases: 17
Dismissed: 6
Dismissal rate: 35.3%
Window: Feb 2021 to Jan 2026

We deliberately do not score a "matches" or "does not match" verdict between the two panels. Stalking-response performance per force is not in the public data; misconduct outcomes are a different signal. Both are real datasets. Whether they're statistically linked is what the correlation analysis in the National Context section actually tests, see the result rather than assuming one.

08/08National context and ranking

How this force sits against the other 43. The national picture is taken verbatim from the NPCC's own synthesis report on Recommendation 29. The compare chart uses the same live misconduct coverage as Section 1 (third-party blog aggregation, not official record).

National picture · all 43 forces

What the NPCC's own synthesis report actually says

The NPCC commissioned an executive summary collating every force's November 2024 action plan and March 2025 six-month update against the 15 recommendations made to chief constables. The extracts below are verbatim from that report. Nothing on this page is paraphrased without being labelled. Useful context even for the forces that don't yet have an individual card here.

Progress the report records

Recommendation 10, training
88,879 officers had completed the College of Policing stalking e-learning by January 2025, an 800% rise since 2023, but still well short of the relevant workforce.
Data gathered from the College of Policing confirms that, as of January 2025, the completion rate across all forces in England and Wales stands at 88,879. This is compared with 148,886 officers across England and Wales, not all of whom will require this training. Whilst this is a considerable improvement, marking an 800% increase since 2023, there remains more work to be done to ensure all frontline staff have completed these e-learning packages.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report
Recommendations 27 & 28, publication
All 43 forces have published an action plan and submitted a six-month progress update.
All forces across England and Wales have complied with this recommendation and action plans have been published on force websites. Updated action plans have been received by the NPCC from all forces detailing progress made against commitments detailed in their initial action plans.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report

Gaps the report itself flags

Recommendation 14, victim needs assessments
Some forces' action plans did not even mention Victim Needs Assessments. They have been told to fix that.
Certain forces did not reference completing a 'Victim Needs Assessment' specifically in their action plans; these forces have been asked to update their action plans accordingly, and to ensure that this is covered in any future updates or publications.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report
Recommendation 12, risk assessment
There is no nationally accredited stalking risk-assessment tool. Forces are picking from a patchwork.
There is currently no single risk assessment which has been accredited and endorsed for use in the UK for all stalking types.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report
Recommendation 13, Stalking Protection Orders
The NPCC's own report records ongoing judicial reticence to grant SPOs, including refusals where police bail is in place.
Throughout the updates and communications with forces, the NPCC is aware that there are ongoing barriers with the application for SPOs, particularly with reticence from the judiciary. There have been examples when police bail has been used as a reason to refuse applications for SPOs.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report
Recommendation 18, investigations
Some forces admit they are not using arrest powers in stalking cases at the rate that would be expected.
Certain forces have acknowledged that they are not using arrest powers in stalking cases at a rate that is expected. This is demonstrated in their data reviews and they have made firm commitments to address this.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report
Cross-cutting, non-DA stalking
Non-domestic-abuse stalking victims are repeatedly identified as the gap in provision.
There continues to be a disparity between service provisions available to Domestic Abuse and Non-Domestic Abuse victims/perpetrators. Forces have widely acknowledged that the availability of services for non-DA stalking cases needs to be reviewed and increased, however it has been highlighted by some areas that their demand for such services comes primarily from DA cases.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report

Structural context

Recommendation 16, victim support funding
British Transport Police flags a structural gap: no PCC, no joint-service funding.
British Transport Police have noted that they do not have a PCC or equivalent and therefore do not receive any funding for joint services. Despite this, they have engaged with Paladin to maintain some form of provision for victims and are working with local areas to ensure services are provided where needed.
Verbatim from Recommendation 29 report

Stalking & harassment recorded rate · national context · Y/E Dec 2025

West Yorkshire has by far the highest recorded stalking & harassment rate in England and Wales

West Yorkshire sits at 19.5 per 1,000 - meaningfully above every other force and roughly 2.0× the national average of ~9.8 per 1,000. Important caveat: a higher recorded rate can reflect more victims coming forward and better recording practice as readily as more actual offending. We state the figure; we do not imply cause.

Highest recorded rate

West Yorkshire19.5
Humberside14.9
Avon and Somerset14.6
Greater Manchester14.5
Cleveland13.9

Lowest recorded rate

Suffolk4.7
North Yorkshire5.1
Wiltshire5.7
Norfolk6.0
Sussex6.5

City of London is suppressed by ONS in this dataset (tiny resident population) and is excluded from these rankings.

Source: ONS / Home Office Police Recorded Crime, Table P3 (year ending December 2025).

Cross-reference · recorded-crime vs misconduct coverage

Do high-crime forces also show up high on misconduct coverage?

Worth knowing whether the recorded-crime picture and the accountability picture line up or look independent. We compute the correlation honestly across the 42 forces present in both datasets. State the finding; no causal claim either way.

Stalking rate vs live misconduct count
r = -0.09
Essentially no linear relationship
Total crime rate vs live misconduct count
r = 0.31
Moderate relationship
Stalking rate vs dismissal rate
r = -0.08
Essentially no linear relationship

The two pictures are largely independent - a force's recorded stalking & harassment rate doesn't reliably predict its misconduct-coverage volume, and vice versa. The crime rate panel measures what was reported to the police; the RAG rating and misconduct coverage measure what the police did. The cross-tab below shows how stalking-rate tiers map onto RAG ratings - read it as descriptive, not causal.

Low third

Acting: 5
Concern: 5
Serious: 1
Insuff.: 3

Middle third

Acting: 7
Concern: 4
Serious: 2
Insuff.: 1

High third

Acting: 6
Concern: 4
Serious: 1
Insuff.: 3

Stalking-rate tier	Acting	Concern	Serious	Insufficient
Low third	5	5	1	3
Middle third	7	4	2	1
High third	6	4	1	3

Funding per head · national context · 2026/27

Where forces sit on funding per head of population

National average: £297 per head. Total funding rises from £17,565.4m to £18,361.5m (+4.5%). The Metropolitan Police receives £439 per head - nearly double the lowest-funded territorial forces. Welsh forces and Merseyside cluster notably high per-head; a real geographic funding pattern, stated as fact without speculation on cause.

Highest per head

Metropolitan£439
Merseyside£342
Gwent£341
North Wales£338
South Wales£337

Lowest per head

Lincolnshire£232
Bedfordshire£234
Wiltshire£235
Essex£236
Cambridgeshire£237

City of London is excluded from per-head rankings - its small resident population vs large daytime/workday population means a per-head figure would be misleading and is not published.

Source: Police Grant Report (England and Wales), 2026/27.

Compare all forces

44 forces, ranked by dismissal rate

Of 44 forces: 18 acting, 13 concern, 5 serious concern, 8 insufficient data.

Low concernSome concernHigh concernInsufficient data

Sourcemisconduct999.com, a third-party aggregator that publishes posts on police misconduct hearings. These figures count hearings the blog has published a post about — not an official record and not the universe of recorded allegations. Data refreshed periodically; upstream scrape cadence is not independently verified. Snapshot generated ….

Force Checker

Force Checker

Devon & Cornwall Police

Devon & Cornwall Police

Government statistics, historical

Inspectorate grades for Devon & Cornwall Police

Complaints logged per 1,000 employees

Independent IOPC review applications and outcomes

Who works at Devon & Cornwall Police

What Devon & Cornwall Police is funded with

What was reported to Devon & Cornwall Police

What the NPCC's own synthesis report actually says

Progress the report records

Gaps the report itself flags

Structural context

West Yorkshire has by far the highest recorded stalking & harassment rate in England and Wales

Do high-crime forces also show up high on misconduct coverage?

Where forces sit on funding per head of population

44 forces, ranked by dismissal rate