Received: 17 August 2026

QUESTION 1: 

For each of the calendar years 2018 to 2022 inclusive, please state the number of gross misconduct cases proceeding to a full hearing that were supported by the PFEW, on the same basis as the first table in FOI 00500. If data for the earlier years in that range is not held, please provide the earliest years for which it is. 

QUESTION 2: 

For each of the same calendar years, please state the cost of gross misconduct legal proceedings supported by the PFEW, on the same basis as the second table in FOI 00500.

QUESTION 3: 

For each calendar year from 2018 to 2026 to date, please state the total number of gross misconduct cases supported by the PFEW, including those that did not proceed to a full hearing. This is so that the case numbers and the cost figures rest on the same basis. 

QUESTION 4: 

Please confirm what the cost figures include, specifically whether they cover solicitors' fees, counsel's fees, expert fees and disbursements, and whether they are stated net of any costs recovered from any other party. 

QUESTION 5: 

Of the gross misconduct cases proceeding to a full hearing supported by the PFEW in each calendar year from 2023 to date, please state how many resulted in dismissal, how many in a final written warning or lesser sanction, and how many in a finding of no case to answer or of misconduct not proven. If outcome data is not held, please say so.

Responded: 18 September 2026

RESPONSE 1: 

A change in our IT system towards the end of 2019 means that the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) cannot provide any data in relation to this request for the year 2018 as we cannot provide the breakdown of cases that progressed to a full hearing and those that did not.  Data for the year 2019 would be skewed due to the changeover and so the PFEW does not hold an accurate dataset for that year.  We can provide data pertinent to this request for the years 2020 onwards as shown below:

RESPONSE 2: 

A change to our billing system means that the PFEW cannot provide the data for the years 2018-2020.  We can provide data from 2021 onwards as per the below:

RESPONSE 3: 

RESPONSE 4: 

In order to answer this part of the request, each bill for every individual case would have to be scrutinised.  We estimate that it would take a minimum of 15 minutes per bill to obtain the data pertinent to this question and this exercise would exceed the time/cost limit imposed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).  This question is therefore exempted under Section 12 of FOIA.  We do not think that there is a way that this question could be reasonably amended to obtain the data within the time/cost limit as the volume of files is too large.   

RESPONSE 5: 

The PFEW can partially answer this question and can provide data on dismissals only as the other outcomes requested are not obtainable without manually reviewing each individual case which, as is the case with Q4, would exceed the time/cost limit imposed by FOIA.  On that basis, we have provided the data for dismissals only: