Review of non-crime hate incidents

Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) represent a very small proportion of overall police demand. They originated from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Their purpose is to gather information and intelligence to prevent crime, support investigations and safeguard the vulnerable.

This aim remains as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. It is essential that police can monitor hate and hostility in our communities.

In recent years, however, there have been numerous examples where the public have felt the police response to hate or hostility has been disproportionate. In today’s polarised and highly connected world, police have increasingly found themselves drawn into policing the online space and social media debates.

The boundaries between what is legitimate free speech, even where it is offensive, and what requires police intervention are not always clear or absolute. They depend on context, intent and impact.

When police receive a report perceived by the caller to be motivated by hate or hostility, the initial assessment is critically important in determining the most appropriate response.

Evidence gathered during this review shows that call takers often struggle, in the short timeframe of a call, to assess which reports require police involvement and which do not. For many call takers, concern about missing a crime means they default to recording rather than not recording an NCHI.

When recording NCHIs, many forces transfer reports to their Records Management System (RMS). These systems allow for better data analysis to support the force’s duties for safeguarding and crime prevention.

However, in some forces, the RMS automatically assigns these incidents a crime status, generating a crime or investigation reference number and applying criminal terminology such as ‘victim’ and ‘suspect’. This is inappropriate for a non-crime matter.

The purpose of this review was to understand the problems with the current approach. It also set out to make recommendations for reform that would:

• ensure that reports which may lead to genuine harm and risk in communities are actioned effectively and proportionately, safeguarding the most vulnerable individuals from harm and monitoring community tensions, as was the original intention of the Lawrence Report
• prevent the inappropriate recording of lawful free speech, supporting proportionate policing which focuses on its core missio

The police service’s Code of Ethics emphasises that ‘doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons’ is fundamental to maintaining police legitimacy. This approach becomes ever more important in today’s landscape of increased demand and limited resources, set in an increasingly complex environment of legislation, statutory instruments, guidance and professional advice.

This report follows on from the progress report, published in October 2025, which clearly stated that NCHIs are not fit for purpose. This report sets out the case for change and makes recommendations that will result in the end of NCHIs. It also sets out a new approach which simplifies police responses to hostility and hate.

Recommendation 1: The Home Office, supported by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing, should adopt, update and publish the National Standard for Incident Recording and Assessment (NSIRA), including the new definition of an incident.

Recommendation 2: The Home Office, in partnership with the NPCC and the College, should support forces to implement the NSIRA.

Recommendation 3: Forces should identify statutory and non-statutory partners to support callers where police involvement is not appropriate.

Recommendation 4: Where a report perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility meets the new threshold of an incident under the NSIRA (see recommendation 1), it should be recorded as anti-social behaviour (ASB) with a prejudice qualifier added.

Recommendation 5: When updating the NSIRA (see recommendation 1), the Home Office, in consultation with the NPCC and College of Policing, should agree the subcategories for ASB.

Recommendation 6: Forces must assure themselves that, when it is necessary to move an incident record to the RMS, it is recorded as a non-crime occurrence, not a crime.

Recommendation 7: Forces should implement a triage process to ensure that incidents perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility are correctly assessed and quality assured by appropriately trained staff.

Recommendation 8: The College should develop guidance and learning resources to help forces implement these recommendations.

Recommendation 9: The College should conduct public consultation on future guidance.

Recommendation 10: Given the findings and recommendations in this report, the NPCC should consider how the National Online Hate Crime Hub is best used moving forwards.

Recommendation 11: Chief constables should ensure their force complies with data protection laws and the principles of management of police information (MoPI).

Recommendation 12: The Home Office should consider whether the current Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data remains relevant.

Recommendation 13: The Home Office should assess whether the current statutory guidance remains fit for purpose and if further support is needed to help chief officers in their Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) decision-making.

Recommendation 14: Chief constables should develop an implementation plan to realise the changes set out in this report.

Recommendation 15: The Home Office should consider commissioning His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) to inspect forces on their implementation of the changes set out in this report.

Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) were borne out of the landmark Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, published in 1999. They were intended to help policing monitor incidents that are perceived by the complainant to be motivated by hate or hostility, but which are not crimes.

The intention was to gather information and intelligence to prevent crime, support investigations and safeguard the vulnerable. This remains as relevant today as it did 30 years ago. It is essential police retain the ability to monitor hate and hostility in our communities.

What could not have been envisaged at the time of the Lawrence Inquiry was the expansion of the internet, the advent of smart phones and social media. These developments have transformed how people interact with each other, blurring the lines between what is public and what is intended as private dialogue.

The rapid growth of online interaction, coupled with increasingly polarised public discourse, has created a complex challenge for policing. Officers are now faced with determining where the balance lies between legitimate, lawful expression and imagery, and what constitutes an incident requiring police intervention.

In some high-profile NCHI cases, policing has not struck this balance effectively. Disproportionate responses have left individuals feeling criminalised for engaging in lawful debate, prompting criticism that police are becoming involved in matters that should not be for the police to deal with.

Given these concerns, the College and the NPCC wrote to the Policing Minister offering to undertake a full review of police practices for recording NCHIs. In July 2025, Terms of Reference (ToR) were agreed with the Home Office; and this is the final report.

While the ToR include considering the impact of NCHIs on freedom of expression, a review of the criminal law relating to freedom of expression falls outside the scope of this review. This is because NCHIs are not crimes: they are incidents reported to the police that do not meet the threshold of criminality. But they may still require some form of police involvement, similar to other non-crime incidents such as road traffic collisions, missing persons or anti-social behaviour (ASB).

Recent high-profile cases, involving alleged public order crimes arising from social media posts, highlight that concerns about freedom of expression extend far beyond the issue of NCHIs. For this reason, we have already met with Lord Macdonald who is examining issues relating to freedom of expression as part of the Independent Review of Public Order and Hate Crime Legislation.

The College and the NPCC will continue to work closely with the Home Office to ensure that the recommendations from this NCHI review align with and support any future findings from Lord Macdonald’s review.

The review process has drawn on the policy and legal development surrounding NCHIs over recent years, as well as the more recent review undertaken by HMICFRS in its inspection into activism and impartiality (September 2024).

Building on this work, the NPCC hate crime portfolio gathered data from 34 forces; conducted interviews with teams across 17 forces; and ran workshop sessions, follow-up discussions and dip-sampled cases. This activity helped to better understand the challenges faced by forces and was used to formulate the proposals for reform, which were published in a progress report in October 2025.

Following publication of the progress report, a practitioner group was established to test the proposals for reform with policing. Weekly meetings were held to develop and shape the proposals into the final recommendations in this report.

Updates and proposed recommendations have also been checked and tested with relevant national policing leads, with this final report submitted for approval and sign off by Chief Constables’ Council in March 2026.

The Police Productivity Review estimated that there are around 40 million calls for service annually coming into the police service through 999 and 101 telephone numbers. If the call is not immediately identified as a crime, it must be recorded as an incident.

NCHIs are only a small proportion of the incidents reported to the police. Other examples include ASB, road traffic collisions, missing persons and mental health-related incidents.

Understanding NCHI demand is generally difficult as this data is not collated nationally. It is recorded and monitored at individual force level. As a basis for understanding demand, the review began by considering trends in nationally recorded crime data.

While the Crime Survey for England and Wales (2025) shows that the public’s experience of hate crime has declined, the number of hate crimes reported by the public and recorded by the police has increased. In the year ending March 2025 there were 137,550 recorded hate crime offences, which accounted for less than 2% of all recorded crime. This pattern of results suggests a greater willingness among the public to report hate or hostility to the police, as well as an increase in hate expressed in the online space.

To understand the specific demand from NCHIs, the NPCC Hate Crime Portfolio requested data from every force on the numbers of NCHIs they recorded between April 2022 and March 2025. Data was provided by 34 forces (including the three major metropolitan forces: the Metropolitan Police Service, West Midlands Police and Greater Manchester Police).

Data shows the number of NCHIs recorded by 34 forces (9,305 incidents in 2024/25) compared with the number of ASB incidents recorded for all forces over the same period of time (1,030,278 in 2024/25). The comparison against ASB data starkly illustrates that NCHIs form only a very small proportion of the non-crime demand coming into policing.

The data gathered from forces also indicates an overall downward trend in the recording of NCHIs following the introduction of the previous Government’s Code of Practice and the College’s revised Hate crime authorised professional practice. Short-term spikes in NCHIs within the overall downward trend appear to follow major events, such as the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023, suggesting forces remain attuned to tensions in their local communities.

It is essential that policing continues to be able to monitor hate and hostility in our communities to identify community tensions, prevent crime and safeguard vulnerable people. However, policing recognises, and this review has confirmed, that reform is required to ensure this is achieved effectively, and in line with the demands and complexities of policing in a digital age.

The key challenges for forces when dealing with reports linked to hate or hostility and recommendations for reform are set out below.

Under the Home Office Crime Recording Rules for frontline officers and staff (HOCR), all reports of incidents must be recorded by police in an auditable format.

The National Standard for Incident Recording (NSIR) defines an ‘incident’ as:

• ‘a single distinct event or occurrence which disturbs an individual, group or community’s quality of life or causes them concern’.

This definition is broad in scope and is open to interpretation beyond the core purposes of policing – preventing and detecting crime, protecting life and property, and maintaining public order. Compounding this, the NSIR has not been reviewed since 2011 and does not reflect contemporary policing demand, technological advances or modern approaches to incident management and organisational learning.

The Policing Productivity Review indicated that an updated NSIR could deliver significant efficiency gains, with potential savings of up to 200,000 hours annually for some forces.

As a result, in 2023 the NPCC lead for HOCR and NSIR commissioned a review of the NSIR, which produced a revised National Standard for Incident Recording and Assessment (NSIRA).

The NSIRA provides clear guidance on incident and threat assessment, including the identification of risk of harm. It introduces a more focused definition of an incident, aligning it with policing’s core purposes. The below sets out the changes in the definition of an incident.

Current definition of an incident

• ‘An incident is a single distinct event or occurrence which disturbs an individual, group or community’s quality of life or causes them concern.’

Proposed new definition of an incident

• ‘An incident is a single distinct event or occurrence which may be relevant to policing for preventing or solving crime, safeguarding individuals or communities or fulfilling other statutory policing purposes.’

Due to this review, the draft NSIRA will need further updating to reflect the recommendations contained in this report.

Recommendation 1: The Home Office supported by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing, should adopt, update and publish the National Standard for Incident Recording and Assessment (NSIRA), including the new definition of an incident.

Recommendation 2: The Home Office, in partnership with the NPCC and the College of Policing, should support forces to implement the NSIRA.

The primary purpose of recording an incident is to prevent crime and safeguard individuals and communities. If a person or group believes they have been targeted because of a protected characteristic, they should feel confident in reporting it to the police and be assured that their concerns will be taken seriously. However, the police may not always be the most appropriate service provider to respond to these concerns.

When police receive a call from a member of the public, a proportionate initial assessment is a critical stage in determining the most appropriate response.

When a report is assessed as not requiring police intervention, it is essential that the caller is signposted to other, more appropriate sources of support who are better placed to address their concerns.

This approach reflects the principles of Right Care, Right Person, which ensures individuals with health or social care needs receive the right help promptly while enabling the police to focus on preventing and detecting crime, protecting life and property, and maintaining public order.

When the police are not the appropriate service provider, forces should identify specific and credible statutory and non-statutory partners to which they can confidently signpost callers affected by perceived hate. Existing partnerships and problem-solving approaches for ASB should be leveraged (see recommendation 4).

Forces should also work with local partners and stakeholders to explore how the police can support relevant agencies, such as schools and local authorities, in raising awareness and resolving these incidents through collaborative approaches.

Recommendation 3: Forces should identify statutory and non-statutory partners to support callers where police involvement is not appropriate.

When someone reports an incident to the police, it is recorded on command-and-control systems using an opening code from the National Incident Category List (NICL). The opening code identifies the type of incident that has been reported, based on the information provided by the caller. A qualifier may also be added to the opening code to provide additional insight about the nature of the incident.

When a call is resolved and no further police action is required, the incident is closed using an appropriate closing code. A closing code may be different to the opening code because it will reflect an assessment of the report and any additional information provided.

Examples of opening codes and qualifiers are shown below.

Examples of opening code categories

• Transport
• Anti-social behaviour (ASB)
• Public safety and welfare
• Administration

Examples of qualifiers

• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Mental health
• Youth related
• Prejudice (disability / racial / religion or belief / sexual orientation / transgender)

Currently incidents perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility can be recorded under any opening code category, with a prejudice qualifier applied. The fact that these incidents can be recorded under any opening code, means it can be difficult for forces to search and analyse incident data on command-and-control systems.

Challenges with analysis have led many forces to transfer all incoming NCHI reports to their Records Management System (RMS). The RMS provides enhanced functionality for information management, searching and analysis, allowing the addition of supplementary content, and enabling review and supervision of incidents – capabilities that forces consider important to support their duties in safeguarding and crime prevention.

However, in some cases, automation of RMS business processes can assign these incidents a crime status classification, leading to an investigation reference number and applying criminal terminology such as ‘victim’ and ‘suspect’. Using criminal terminology for non-crime matters has the potential to confuse these incidents in the minds of officers and staff. Externally, this practice has raised public concern that policing is potentially criminalising individuals for non-crime matters, which undermines confidence in the service.

Incidents perceived to be motivated by hate and hostility should be recorded in the same way as any other incident. This should include the use of a common, consistent opening code and the addition of the relevant prejudice qualifier (race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender).

To support forces in achieving this, the draft NSIRA should be updated. Having considered the definition of ASB in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, it is proposed that where a report meets the threshold of an incident under the NSIRA, it should be recorded as ASB. The definition of ASB is as follows.

• Conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.
• Conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises.
• Conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.

The ASB category currently has three subcategories as set out below. The new draft NSIRA reduces this to two: Personal and Community.

Personal

Incidents that the caller, call-handler or anyone else perceive as either deliberately targeted at an individual or group or having an impact on an individual or group rather than the community at large. It includes incidents that cause concern, stress, disquiet and/or irritation through to incidents which have a serious adverse impact on people’s quality of life. At one extreme of the spectrum it includes minor annoyance. At the other end it could result in risk of harm, deterioration of health and disruption of mental or emotional wellbeing, resulting in an inability to carry out normal day-to-day activities through fear and intimidation.

Nuisance

Incidents where an act, condition, thing or person causes trouble, annoyance, inconvenience, offence or suffering to the local community in general rather than to individual victims. It includes incidents where behaviour goes beyond the conventional bounds of acceptability and interferes with public interests including health, safety and quality of life. Just as individuals will have differing expectations and levels of tolerance, communities will have different ideas about what goes beyond tolerable or acceptable behaviour.

Environmental

Incidents where individuals and groups have an impact on their surroundings including natural, built and social environments. This category is about encouraging reasonable behaviour while managing and protecting the various environments so that people can enjoy their own private spaces as well as shared or public spaces. People’s physical settings and surroundings are known to impact positively or negatively on mood and sense of wellbeing. A perception that nobody cares about the quality of a particular environment can cause those affected by that environment to feel undervalued or ignored. Public spaces change over time as a result of physical effects caused, for example, by building. But the environment can also change as a result of the people using or misusing that space.

Using an ASB opening code category supports management of an incident, data collection and analysis. It does not make a judgement about the severity or legitimacy of the harm caused.

Categorisation under ASB means these reports should, where appropriate, receive a partnership and problem-solving response. This approach is set out in the ASB Statutory guidance for frontline professionals. It may include police, local authorities, housing providers and others.

The statutory guidance also offers individuals and communities the right to request a review of their case where the threshold is met. A number of third-sector organisations are also available to provide support to complainants subject to ASB.

In addition to the above, the College’s neighbourhood policing programme (NPP) has a significant focus on ASB. It supports officers to identify and understand the risk and harm caused by ASB, as well as how best to work with partners to make interventions to tackle problems.

The NPP is being rolled out across policing. 43 forces have committed to the programme and over 18,000 neighbourhood police constables (PCs) and police community support officers (PCSOs) have already completed modules on ASB, problem solving and community engagement.

Making ASB the designated opening code category for incidents perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility would give forces a greater ability to search command-and-control systems, to collate data and identify repeat incidents. ASB incidents are already included in the annual data return (ADR), which would mean that all incidents, including those with a prejudice qualifier would also be part of the force ADR. This would improve data analysis, transparency and accountability; and support a commitment to better data and information, as set out in the National policing culture and inclusion strategy 2025 to 2030.

Forces should only move an incident to the RMS when it is assessed as requiring further action. Any non-crime incident moved to the RMS must be recorded as a non-crime occurrence, not a crime. Some forces will need technical mitigations or interim workarounds to support this aspect, and supplier engagement will be key. This may require lead-in time for some forces.

Any information recorded on policing systems must be managed in accordance with the principles of management of police information (MoPI), data protection and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Recommendation 4: Where a report perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility meets the new threshold of an incident under the NSIRA, it should be recorded as ASB with a prejudice qualifier added.

Recommendation 5: When updating the NSIRA, the Home Office, in consultation with the NPCC and College of Policing, should agree the subcategories for ASB.

Recommendation 6: Forces must assure themselves that, when it is necessary to move an incident record to the RMS, it is recorded as a non-crime occurrence, not a crime.

When police receive a report from a member of the public, the initial assessment is critically important. Call takers spend on average 14 minutes making this initial assessment to determine the most appropriate police response. They are expected to take a victim-focused approach, treating the caller with empathy and taking their concerns seriously.

The call taker must gather as much information as possible to assess threat, risk and harm and whether there are any vulnerabilities or safeguarding concerns. Reports perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility present additional considerations, particularly where the report involves freedom of expression, and assessing where the balance lies between legitimate, lawful expression and what constitutes an incident requiring police intervention. The boundaries are not always clear or absolute and will depend on context, intent and impact.

In its inspection into activism and impartiality, HMICFRS observed that call takers may not have the capacity, knowledge and experience to make such a complicated assessment. Evidence gathered during this review has also shown that when it comes to reports perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility, call takers worry about making mistakes and missing a crime. They therefore tend to over-record reports as incidents requiring police involvement.

Some forces have already taken steps to remove that assessment from call takers, instead passing the assessment to staff with specialist training. Those forces in which hate crime specialists, rather than call takers, carry out the assessment and review believe that this approach improves assessments6.

As part of this review, the College and NPCC have worked with police practitioners to develop a triage process, as part of a wider process map for incidents perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility. The triage process will quality assure reports, including:

• identifying reports that may lead to genuine harm and risk, and ensure they are actioned proportionately; and
• preventing inappropriate recording, involving police in incidents that are outside the core purposes of policing – preventing and detecting crime, protecting life and property, and maintaining public order.

Following triage, reports will be managed appropriately.

• If no police action is required, the incident should be closed and the record retained on the command-and-control system. Closing an incident log does not mean the information contained on the incident log is disregarded. If there are repeat calls involving similar information, the call log can be linked and the information reassessed.
• If further police action is required to support safeguarding or crime prevention, the incident should be passed to a neighbourhood/appropriate team and a record created on the RMS as a non-crime matter. Supervisors and neighbourhood teams should ensure their decision making reflects risk, repeat harm and vulnerability.
• If an incident report contains information which could result in intelligence, this should be passed to intelligence processes as per force guidance and systems.

We recognise that forces will need the flexibility to implement the triage process to suit their individual requirements. It will be up to individual forces to decide the most appropriate model for their force, reflecting local demand and current contact management processes.

Comprehensive training and guidance will be provided for staff undertaking the triage process. Triage should support, not replace, professional judgement at first contact. This will be reflected in the guidance and learning resources developed.

Recommendation 7: Forces should implement a triage process to ensure that incidents perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility are correctly assessed and quality assured by appropriately trained staff.

Guidance and learning resources are intended to help officers navigate complex and challenging problems and processes. The new systems and processes recommended by this review will require new guidance and learning resources to support implementation. This will include the following.

• Bespoke training for staff involved in triage.
• Awareness training for other relevant roles.
• ‘Point of need’ resources including, for example short, practical tools to support effective decision making and problem solving.
• Guidance resources on freedom of expression.
• Supervisor learning.

Learning solutions should be informed by a comprehensive learning needs analysis.

Resources embedded into any future learning and development will build on, reference and include relevant current work by the College and NPCC, including the following.

• The neighbourhood policing programme, which supports officers to develop problem-solving approaches to ASB and other neighbourhood crimes and incidents.
• The production of scenario-based learning to support officers and staff to use their professional judgement through the application of the PLANE principles – proportionality, lawfulness, accountability, necessity and ethics.
• The development of an AI tool to help officers navigate legislation and guidance by providing instant, accurate responses to officers’ questions, with the responses generated from a fixed library of quality-assured documents.
• The development of a real-time AI-supported transcription of emergency and 101 telephone calls to support call taker decision making and recording.

To support public confidence and ensure the development of an effective product, the College should undertake comprehensive stakeholder engagement and public consultation on new guidance material, setting out the new approach and supporting materials prior to publication.

Recommendation 8: The College should develop guidance and learning resources to help forces implement these recommendations.

Recommendation 9: The College should conduct public consultation on future guidance.

The NPCC National Online Hate Crime Hub currently responds to incidents reported through the True Vision website. It also works with forces to identify incidents that may indicate rising community tensions across force boundaries. It can also provide support and advice to forces for incidents involving online freedom of expression.

Further work could be undertaken with forces and stakeholders to explore how the National Online Hate Crime Hub could provide wider advice and support to forces, particularly in the online space.

Recommendation 10: Given the findings and recommendations in this report, the NPCC should consider how the National Online Hate Crime Hub is best used moving forwards.

All information, including intelligence and personal data obtained and recorded for police purposes, is referred to as police information. The police should only record and store information if there is a policing purpose to do so. A policing purpose is defined as:

• protecting life and property
• preserving order
• preventing the commission of offences
• bringing offenders to justice
• any duty or responsibility of the police arising from common or statute law

A comprehensive framework of legislation and guidance governs the management of police information.

• Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) – Part 3: Law enforcement processing: Establishes a dedicated legal framework for competent authorities (for example, police) to process personal data for prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of offences and public security.
• UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Part 2 of DPA 2018: General processing: Governs processing of personal data for non-law enforcement purposes, such as staff records, HR and internal assessments – obligating the police to uphold principles of accuracy, security, lawful basis and data subject rights.
• Police Act 1996 (as amended) and police information and records management Code of Practice (PIRM Code, July 2023): Statutory code under section 39A of the Police Act, prescribing standards for information lifecycle management. This covers creation, use, retention, disposal and ethical use of police information across operational and corporate police records, including personal data, ensuring compliance with DPA 2018 and UK GDPR.
• College of Policing Information management authorised professional practice (APP) further supports chief constables to comply with the above.

Over-recording reports because of fear of missing something may lead to information being retained where there are no lawful grounds. It is important that information is only recorded where there is a policing purpose to do so.

Maintaining information records correctly is critical for policing, as well as public trust and confidence. This review and associated recommendations provide an opportunity for chief constables to ensure their information management processes are compliant with data protection laws and principles of MoPI.

The HMICFRS Activism and Impartiality Review observed that the introduction of the Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data created a different threshold for recording personal data in relation to non-crime hate incidents than other non-crime incidents such as ASB.

The recommendations set out in this report will support forces to treat incidents which are perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility in the same way as other non-crime incidents, while still promoting high standards of data retention and management, particularly in relation to personal data.

Policy development in this space is the role of the Home Office. Following this review, the Home Office should consider whether the Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data remains relevant.

Recommendation 11: Chief constables should ensure their force complies with data protection laws and the principles of management of police information.

Recommendation 12: The Home Office should consider whether the current Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data remains relevant.

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are background checks to help employers make safer recruitment decisions, particularly for roles involving children or vulnerable adults. An enhanced DBS check is the most detailed level of check and could include any relevant information held by police, including non-conviction information.

One of the key concerns raised about NCHIs is the possibility that employment rights could be affected by potential disclosure of non-conviction data through an enhanced DBS check. However, the release of non-conviction information on an enhanced criminal record certificate cannot happen unless a chief officer is satisfied that its release meets the threshold imposed by the Police Act 1997.

There is also statutory guidance to support chief officers in making such a decision.

Given the public concern expressed on this issue, the Home Office, as the responsible body, should consider whether any further guidance is required for chief constables when considering whether an additional disclosure should be made on an Enhanced DBS certificate.

Recommendation 13: The Home Office should assess if the current statutory guidance remains fit for purpose and if further support is needed to help chief officers in their DBS decision-making.

The key to successful reform is a responsibility that sits across all policing stakeholders. However, the greatest opportunities for successful change lie within forces. During the current review we have engaged with forces to consider their concerns, ideas and innovations. In addition, the progress report and recommendations have been socialised with forces to ensure there is a common understanding of the problems this review is seeking to address.

It is important that chief constables take ownership for implementing these changes in their force. Police officers and staff must continue to take reports of hate or hostility seriously, so that they can gather vital information and intelligence to monitor community tension, prevent crime and keep communities and individuals safe.

While numerical reductions in recorded incidents may follow the recommendations in this report, effective performance should be judged on the following.

• Consistency and accountability of decision‑making
• Quality of assessment and triage
• Staff confidence in applying professional judgement
• Public confidence

After adequate time for forces to implement the changes, the Home Secretary may wish to consider commissioning an inspection of forces on their implementation of the changes set out in this report.

Recommendation 14: Chief constables should develop an implementation plan to realise the changes set out in this report.

Recommendation 15: The Home Office should consider commissioning HMICFRS to inspect forces on their implementation of the changes set out in this report.