Police Digital Service ex-staffers launch employment tribunal motion over mistreatment claims
The Police Digital Service (PDS) is ready to be the topic of at the least two employment tribunals this yr, with former staffers making claims of harassment, sexual discrimination and unfair constructive dismissal in opposition to the organisation, Pc Weekly has discovered.
Three PDS senior executives, together with a director, are additionally understood to have been dismissed in latest weeks, in line with sources with a detailed working data of the House Workplace-funded organisation, which is chargeable for overseeing the event and supply of the Nationwide Police Digital Technique.
PDS has beforehand been described to Pc Weekly as being a “actually sad place to work”, with sources throughout the organisation reporting low workers morale, amid a promise from the organisation’s senior leaders that the office would bear a “cultural reset”.
This vow is known to have been made to workers following the completion of a “by way of overview” of PDS, following the arrests of two staff in July 2024 for suspected bribery, fraud and misconduct in public workplace.
This occasion led to the resignation of then PDS chief govt Ian Bell, and a subsequent restructure and streamlining of the remainder of the corporate’s senior management workforce over the previous yr, which is now nearly completely staffed by interim hires.
It has now been delivered to Pc Weekly’s consideration that at the least two employment tribunals in opposition to PDS are getting underway this month, with PDS going through claims of harassment and victimisation by one former workers member.
Second case listening to
The preliminary listening to for the second case, introduced by one other ex-PDS staffer, came about throughout the week commencing 5 January 2026, as confirmed to Pc Weekly by the native tribunal workplace overseeing it.
That case is known to function accusations of sexual discrimination and whistleblowing detriment, with the person concerned placing in a declare for unfair constructive dismissal in opposition to PDS.
Sources informed Pc Weekly that there are a number of different employment tribunals regarding the firm’s therapy of former workers members both underway or within the pipeline.
Pc Weekly contacted PDS for a remark and clarification on the forthcoming employment tribunals, in addition to the newer wave of senior departures from the organisation, and acquired the next assertion in response:
“We don’t present touch upon any inner personnel matter which is confidential to each the organisation and any particular person concerned. In relation to employment tribunal claims, like all organisation, we sometimes face claims introduced in opposition to us and are unable to touch upon particular person instances.”
Tradition and engagement
PDS has repeatedly acknowledged that “enhancing the tradition and engagement with staff in any respect ranges” is a precedence for the organisation, with this phrase showing in each PDS monetary report filed with Firms Home since 2020.
The organisation’s most up-to-date set of accounts covers the 12 months to 31 March 2025, and had been filed with Firms Home on 12 December 2025, confirming the organisation acquired a House Workplace grant valued at £22.3m to progress its work throughout this era.
The accounts additionally verify that PDS made a revenue earlier than tax of £2.22m throughout the yr, which is an enchancment on 2024, when it made a lack of £1.2m.
“The revenue for the yr contains the discharge of £3.63m of deferred revenue associated to prior years following a overview of remaining liabilities … with out this there would have been a lack of £1.4m,” the accounts clarified.
Dedication to firm tradition modifications continues
The report reiterates the corporate’s dedication to enhancing office tradition, and mentioned this “continued to be an necessary workstream all through 2024/2025” and can stay one by way of to 2026 “and past”.
Thus far, the corporate mentioned it desires to “develop and embed a tradition the place our folks really feel they matter and perceive how their function contributes to the success of the enterprise”, and that this “programme of labor” has been “up to date to mirror rising priorities and is progressing nicely”.
The report added: “Profession improvement aims, which embrace investing in our folks by way of each specialist and behavioural coaching, proceed to be necessary foundations for the best way we will function in 2025/26 and past.”
On the subject of workers retention, the PDS annual report acknowledged that there was a “regular enhance” in workers turnover over the “rolling 12-month interval” lined by its December 2025 accounts, though “month-by-month” turnover is described in it as having “stabilised” over the course of the 2024/25 monetary yr.
“On the finish of 2024/25, our turnover was 15.5%,” the report said. “Throughout the DDaT [digital, data and technology] trade, a turnover at or beneath 15%, with a retention determine of over 85%, is taken into account good.
“Throughout 2024/25, 34% of our workforce had been ladies,” it added. “This was a secure place throughout the monetary yr … In 2024, 54.5% of the civil service had been ladies.”
As reported by Pc Weekly, sources at PDS have beforehand pointed to the uncertainty surrounding the organisation’s future as a supply of low workers morale, in gentle of the House Workplace’s much-talked-about plans to reform the policing sector.
In November 2024, the House Workplace mentioned the reforms will embrace the creation of a Nationwide Centre of Policing (NCoP) that may have the supply of nationwide IT capabilities in its purview. As reported by Pc Weekly on the time, this has led to questions on whether or not PDS will nonetheless exist as soon as NCoP is created as a result of it seems the 2 entities will probably be duplicating obligations.
In June 2025, Diana Johnson, the previous minister of state for policing and crime prevention, revealed a letter that strongly instructed PDS’s work and obligations will probably be taken over by NCoP. It said that establishing NCoP would require major laws to be handed, and preparatory work undertaken to “facilitate a easy transition of related capabilities” into this new organisation, whereas “sustaining efficient service supply” and guaranteeing minimal disruption to workers.
“Examples of such capabilities [that require transition] embrace the industrial work at present being delivered by BlueLight Industrial Restricted, and the IT capabilities at present delivered by the Police Digital Service,” Johnson’s letter confirmed.
Additional element on NCoP is anticipated to emerge within the coming months, with the publication of the Police reform whitepaper, which was as a result of drop earlier than the tip of 2025, however has now been delayed till early 2026, Pc Weekly understands.
