Received: 7 July 2026

QUESTION 1: 

Unless otherwise stated, I request the information for the last five complete financial years together with the current financial year to date. 

Please provide the following: 

The total number of applications received for Police Federation-funded legal representation in Employment Tribunal proceedings. 

QUESTION 2: 

Of those applications, please state: 

• the number approved; 

• the number refused 

• the number withdrawn before a funding decision was made. 

QUESTION 3: 

For approved applications, please provide a breakdown by the recorded type of Employment Tribunal claim, including, where held: 

• Disability discrimination; 

• Failure to make reasonable adjustments; 

• Discrimination arising from disability; 

• Victimisation; 

• Harassment; 

• Constructive unfair dismissal; 

• Unfair dismissal; 

• Whistleblowing; 

• Race discrimination; 

• Sex discrimination; 

• Age discrimination; 

• Religion or belief discrimination; 

• Sexual orientation discrimination; 

• Pregnancy and maternity discrimination; and 

• Any other recorded claim type. 

QUESTION 4: 

For funded Employment Tribunal cases concluded during this period, please provide the number that: 

• were successful following a Tribunal judgment (whether wholly or partly successful); 

• were unsuccessful following a Tribunal judgment; 

• settled before a final hearing; 

• were withdrawn or discontinued; and 

• remain ongoing. 

QUESTION 5: 

Where recorded, please provide the outcome figures in Question 4 broken down by claim type.

QUESTION 6: 

Please provide the total expenditure on Police Federation legal funding for Employment Tribunal claims during each financial year.

QUESTION 7: 

If recorded, please provide: 

• the average cost of a funded Employment Tribunal case; 

• the highest cost of a funded Employment Tribunal case; and 

• the lowest cost of a funded Employment Tribunal case.

QUESTION 8: 

Please provide copies of any policy, guidance, eligibility criteria, governance documents or decision-making framework used when determining whether legal funding will be granted for Employment Tribunal proceedings. If these documents changed during the requested period, please provide each version together with the date on which it came into effect. 

QUESTION 9: 

During the same period, please provide information relating to applications made by former police officers (that is, applicants who were no longer serving police officers at the time legal funding was requested or continued), including: 

• the total number of applications received; 

• the number approved; 

• the number refused; and 

• the number that remained subject to ongoing funding.

QUESTION 10: 

Where recorded, please provide a breakdown of the Employment Tribunal claim types for former officers whose applications were approved, including: 

• Constructive unfair dismissal; 

• Disability discrimination; 

• Failure to make reasonable adjustments; 

• Discrimination arising from disability; 

• Victimisation; 

• Unfair dismissal; and 

• Any other recorded claim type. 

QUESTION 11: 

Where recorded, please provide the outcomes of funded Employment Tribunal claims brought by former officers, identifying the number that: 

• were successful following a Tribunal judgment; 

• were unsuccessful following a Tribunal judgment; 

• settled before a final hearing; 

• were withdrawn or discontinued; and 

• remain ongoing. 

QUESTION 12: 

Please provide copies of any policy, guidance, eligibility criteria or decision-making documents that relate specifically to the provision, continuation or withdrawal of Police Federation legal funding for former officers pursuing Employment Tribunal proceedings, including claims involving constructive unfair dismissal. 

Responded: 24 July 2026

RESPONSE 1: 

2571 (01/01/21 – 30/06/2026) 

RESPONSE 2:

RESPONSE 3:

*As the numbers are small we have not provided the information under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is done to prevent the possible identification of individuals. 

RESPONSE 4:

We do not hold easily retrievable data to answer the first three bullet points in this question, that being, the number of funded ET cases that were successful following an ET judgement, were unsuccessful following an ET judgement and the number that were settled before a final hearing.  In order to answer these questions, we would need to manually review all the relevant files.  We estimate that this would take approximately 20 minutes per file which would far exceed the time/cost limit of 18 hours/£450 set out in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and as such, this part of the request is exempted under section 12 of FOIA. 

We can however answer the last two bullet points as per the below:

RESPONSE 5:

*As the numbers are small we have not provided the information under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is done to prevent the possible identification of individuals. 

RESPONSE 6:

RESPONSE 7:

Please note that these costs have been collated from costs logged against each relevant case on our database.

RESPONSE 8: 

Please note that the legal funding criteria requested cannot be shared, as this information is considered confidential under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Specifically, it falls under Section 41, Information provided in confidence, which is an absolute exemption. This means there is no obligation to disclose the information, nor is there a requirement to apply a public interest test. Disclosure would constitute a breach of confidence and could potentially prejudice the commercial interests or legal integrity of the parties involved. As such, we are unable to release this information in response to your request. Furthermore, this information additionally is not providable under Section 42 (1) of the aforementioned Act as it is covered under legal professional privilege. Finally to share would also breach Section 43 (2), commercial interests of the Police Federation of England and Wales, because information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it). 

RESPONSE 9: 

The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) does not hold this data in an easily retrievable format.  This means that it would be a manual search through all files to extract the information required to answer this part of the request.  We estimate that it would take approximately 20 minutes to review each file to ascertain this data which would exceed the time/cost limits explained in our response to Q4, and therefore this part of the request is exempted under section 12 of FOIA.

RESPONSE 10: 

Please see our response to Q9. 

RESPONSE 11: 

Please see our response to Q9. 

RESPONSE 12: 

Please see our response to Q8.