Collar number
A collar number, also known as a shoulder number, force identification number or occasionally as force number, identifies police officers, police community support officers, special constables and some police staff in List of [law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories|UK police forces] – other law enforcement agencies, such as HM Prison Service, have also adopted identification numbers. Although now displayed on epaulettes, 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.
In most forces it is simply a one- to five-digit number, but in larger forces a letter code may be added to indicate the officer's base area or unit. In some forces different types of 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.
France
In France, the wearing of the collar number is compulsory, save a few exceptions, from 1 January 2014.Ireland
Uniformed members of An Garda Síochána wear an epaulette, bearing their unique "shoulder number". In the Dublin Metropolitan Region the shoulder number starts with the letter of the district, while in the rest of the country, shoulder numbers begin with the letters of the division.New Zealand
Uniformed constables and sergeants of the New Zealand Police wear an epaulette, bearing their unique "registered number".United Kingdom
City of London
Until recently, collar numbers consisted of a number followed by a single letter to indicate the division.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, 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. All officers' collar numbers were then suffixed by the letters "CP" rather than a divisional letter. In a fashion similar to the Metropolitan police,some units such as Traffic and the Support Group, have their collar number supplemented by either the T or U respectively in order to differentiate their additional training and skill set.
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.Divisional area codes are still used to identify the areas themselves, together with the police station and vehicles nominally covering them, but not officers.
A one, two or three digit number denotes a Sergeant, a three or four 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' 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 would show FH over 81 on their shoulder, which reads more like FH81. Ranks above Sergeant do not have collar numbers – officers are identified by name, or warrant number.
An exception to the above was the City of Westminster borough. Westminster had over 1,500 officers therefore a three digit number system was too small. Until late 2009 constables and sergeants had four digit shoulder numbers beginning 1, 2, 3 or 4. 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 were given the first available number and cross division moves no longer resulted in the need for a new shoulder number.
Frontline Policing
From 2017 to 2019 the Metropolitan Police Service reformed the organisational structure of Frontline Policing from the existing 32 Borough Operational Command Units into 12 new Basic Command Units.EO Holborn
EK Kentish Town
EW West Hampstead
NV Highbury Vale, NH Holloway,
NI Islington
GH Hackney,
GD Shoreditch,
GN Stoke Newington
† Some authoritative sources are self-contradictory and incomplete.
Not all of these stations are currently operational.
Further to this; letters on shoulders will denote borough or newly formed basic command units 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 on their shoulder and not KE. Similarly in newly merged boroughs a PC working from Holloway Police Station would have CN on their shoulder.
Sussex Police
All officers will be provided with a collar number which is also their warrant number. Prior to September 2018, this was deemed by gender for example CS123 would represent a male officer whose surname started with S, a female would being with a D, DS123 for example.The second letter would be the first initial of the officer, followed by a three digit number. In September 2018, this changed and all new officers warrant numbers start EA followed by a three digit number. Following the full use of the EA numbers from 1–999, they now start EB.