A collar number, also known as a shoulder number, force identification number (FIN) or occasionally as force number (although this can also refer to ID number of a force itself), identifies police officers, police community support officers (PCSO), Special Constables (SC or SPC) and some police staff in UK police forces. Although now displayed on epaulettes (i.e. on the shoulder), it is still commonly referred to as a collar number. Although most forces issue a collar number to all warranted officers, regardless of role, only uniformed officers of the ranks constable and sergeant actually display the numbers.
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In most forces it is simply a one- to five-digit number, but in larger forces a letter code (also known as a division call sign) may be added to indicate the officer's base area or unit. In some forces different types of staff (paid ('regular') police officers, special constables, PCSOs and other police staff) are assigned different ranges of numbers, so a person's role can be deduced from the number, but these systems are force specific and there is no national standard.
For the letters shown on riot helmets and the roofs of police vehicles, see Home Office radio callsigns.
France
In France, the wearing of the collar number is compulsory, save a few exceptions, from 1 January 2014.
City of London
Until recently, collar numbers consisted of a number followed by a single letter to indicate the division (e.g. "PC 123A").
In 1914, the force was reorganised into four divisions, each named after its police station:
Moor Lane Police Station was destroyed in the Blitz in 1940, and A Division was abolished and distributed amongst the three remaining divisions. Cloak Lane Police Station was closed down in 1946, and D Division was transferred to the new Wood Street Police Station. The divisions after 1946 therefore stood at:
In 1984, the force was reduced to two territorial divisions, based at Snow Hill Police Station and Bishopsgate Police Station (still B and C Divisions), together with support divisions, and the divisions subsequently stood at:
In February 2009, all the divisions were abolished and the force was divided into directorates (with all patrol officers falling within the new Territorial Policing Directorate, subsequently incorporating certain specialist units and becoming the Uniformed Policing Directorate). All officers' collar numbers were then suffixed by the letters "CP" rather than a divisional letter.
Collar numbers are allocated as follows:
Metropolitan Police
A number, followed by one or two letters indicating the station/sector, borough, or unit. Current practice favours use of borough codes rather than station codes (with the borough code generally taken from one of the borough's stations—see below—which can cause confusion).
Divisional area codes are still used to identify the areas themselves, together with the police station and vehicles (if any) nominally covering them, but not officers. So for example QY88 would be a panda car notionally assigned to Kingsbury, though it would actually be based at QD (i.e. Wembley, the nearest operational police station) and be crewed by officers whose collar numbers all contain the letters 'QK' (since they are counted as Brent officers regardless of which station they may happen to be based at).
A one or two digit number denotes a Sergeant (except in larger boroughs like Southwark where some Sergeants are allocated three digit numbers), a three digit number denotes a Constable, a four digit number beginning with 5 denotes an officer of the Metropolitan Special Constabulary, unless they're attached to a 'Roads & Transport Policing Command' (RTPC) team, in which case the number will begin with an 8 and a four digit number beginning with 7 denotes a PCSO again unless they are attached to RTPC and they will start with a 6. Confusingly, MPS epaulettes display the letters over the digits, i.e. 81FH (a Sergeant based at Hammersmith) would show FH over 81 on his/her shoulder, which reads more like FH81 (the call sign of a panda car based there). Ranks above Sergeant do not have collar numbers - officers are identified by name (e.g. Inspector Smith, who may once have been PC 123KG Smith).
An exception to the above is the City of Westminster borough. Westminster has over 1500 officers therefore a three digit number system is too small. Until late 2009 constables and sergeants had four digit shoulder numbers beginning 1, 2, 3 or 4 (with the leading number signifying which part of the borough you were attached to - 1 Westminster North, 2 Westminster Central, 3 Westminster South or 4 Westminster HQ). With the amalgamation of Westminster Central and South in late 2009 the decision was taken to amalgamate all the shoulder numbers into one numbering system. All new officers joining the borough will be given the first available number and cross division moves will no longer result in the need for a new shoulder number.
Specialist MPS units do not necessarily follow any of the above numbering rules, with both Constables and Sergeants having anything from one to four digits.
All Metropolitan Police officers in uniform below the rank of Inspector are required to have their collar numbers on display at all times. It is increasingly common for higher ranks to display their warrant numbers on their epaulettes in addition to their rank.
† Some authoritative sources (e.g. Police and Constabulary Almanac) are self-contradictory and incomplete.
Not all of these stations are currently operational.
Further to this; letters on shoulders will denote borough and not the police station an officer is based from. An example of this would be a PC working from East Ham police station in the borough of Newham; the PC would have KF (Newham) on their shoulder and not KE (East Ham station).
PNC codes and collar numbers
When a police officer or a member of staff is in a collaborative (multi-constabulary) unit or department, for example such as Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Road Policing Unit. To prevent possible cases of the person getting confused with another member of staff, the PNC code, which is a force identification number is added to the collar number to prevent confusion, e.g. 41-9999 for a Hertfordshire officer. Although this is only use in paperwork, and not seen on the officer's epaulettes,