Police forces across the UK failed to carry out full background checks on new recruits in a rush to meet staffing targets, according to reports. It emerged earlier this week that over 130 officers and staff in the Metropolitan Police, including two serial rapists, committed crimes or misconduct after they were not properly vetted. And the impact of the previous Government’s £3 billion Police Uplift programme may have stretched around the country, with four other forces admitting to “deviating” from standard practice between July 2019 and March 2023, according to the Daily Mail.
Alongside the Met, Greater Manchester Police, Lancashire, Merseyside and Cumbria said they were not checking prospective candidates’ references during an “information gathering exercise” by the Home Office and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in 2022. The Police Uplift programme put pressure on forces across England and Wales to recruit a total of 20,000 new officers within three-and-a-half years or face funding cuts.
Greater Manchester Police said over 1,000 officers and staff were hired without proper reference checks between 2017 and 2023, due to “a decision taken by the then-senior leadership team to request but not seek confirmation of pre-employment history and character references”.
Lancashire Police also admitted to not checking the references for hundreds of employees recruited between 2019 and 2025. A spokesperson said: “A risk-based decision was taken to remove the requirement for pre-employment reference checks for new employees during that period, but all other vetting practices and standards remained in place and were met.”
Merseyside Police similarly confirmed that 3,295 officers and staff were employed without having their references checked between March 2019 and August 2024 – with 55 going on to commit misconduct and 38 sacked, according to the Mail.
A force spokesperson said it was “undertaking an extensive review to identify any and all criminal matters relating to officers and staff employed during this period”.
And Cumbria Police said it “deviated in verifying employment history” of new employees between 2017 and 2025 in cases where it was “not possible to complete checks due to businesses having closed down or failed to respond”.
All four forces said the recruitment shortcuts had not affected the overall vetting procedure, with all new staff and officers still subject to background checks.
It came after a review looking at the 10 years to March 2023 found that over 130 officers in the Metropolitan Police had been improperly vetted, including David Carrick, one of the UK’s worst sex offenders, and Cliff Mitchell, who carried out a “campaign of rape” on two victims over nine years.
Checks failed to reveal an allegation of domestic abuse against Carrick when he was recruited in 2017 and Mitchell was allowed onto the force in 2020 after a vetting panel overturned a decision to reject him on the basis of a previous accusation of raping a child.
A spokesperson for the NPCC said: “It is important to note that the obtaining of references is a distinctive part of the recruitment process and should not be confused with vetting.”