Template talk:Police forces of the United Kingdom

Size

This is a large, dominating template; it might be notable how Australian university templates can be hidden and expanded when required, see University of Western Australia for instance and the bottom of the article has three templates that hide and expand. Djegan 18:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. This template has expanded too much! It needs to be limited to the main territorial forces for each region. MRSC 14:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Jurisdictions

There appears to be a fight over jurisdictions with this infobox. To separate out Scottish forces into separate areas is pointless. There are only eight of them and Scotland is a single legal jurisdiction. England and Wales are a single jurisdiction. Wales is not a separate legal jurisdiction from England. Constables are sworn with jurisdiction in England and Wales as an area. The forces of England and Wales are too numerous to be listed as a single wodge and so breaking them down by region makes sense. Legally Wales is a region of England and Wales. David Newton 22:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. In addition the regional splits used are bogus - Lothian & Borders area might well cover the borders area, but it also covers a big area of the Central Belt. /wangi 12:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Hammersfan, I've reverted your edit which placed the Scottish links on two lines. You do not know a users screen-width, and I do not know yours - best to leave the web-browser to flow the text so it fits into a users screen as best it can. The manual 2 line split does not look too good. I also removed the generic coutry links - they do not link to anything specific about the topic of the template, and therefore simply just clutter the display. Thanks/wangi 14:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's got bigger again

Why does this template need to be so dominating. And why are flags in there? What purpose do they serve? Some are featured twice! I'm going to restore a simple, elegant solution. MRSC 14:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Only thing i'd say against your version is that the order of entries doesn't make sense, and especially having the north and london on the same line. thanks/wangi 15:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The order doesn't matter too much to me, so perhaps you could edit that version. It just needs to economically use the space. MRSC 16:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me, but I really don't think dominating is a particularly apt description for this template. It is not dominating - it has the same number of lines with it centered as if the text were to the left, but it looks better, because any lines that have too many entries (i.e. Scotland) now sit nicely on a single line no matter what screen settings a person might have. As regards naming - Central is not the right way to list the Central Scotland force - one might just as well put North and South as the entires for the two Welsh forces. Likewise, although everyone would colloquially use City to describe the City of London force, it should be called City of London on something like this. Hammersfan 12/7/06, 17.30 BST

No problem with changing any of the links. My main concern is that as a footer template it was just as long (or longer) than some of the articles it was placed in; thus dominating the article. MRSC 17:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It's common in Scotland to simply say "Central" when refering to both the old Central Scotland region and Central Scotland Police. I find it strange you don't have a similar problem with "Northern"?!? Left vs centered is a matter of personal taste, nothing more.

Can someone explain to the ordering of the regions - nothing obvious jumps out at me. Thanks/wangi 16:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetical I guess. MRSC 17:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that edit so it's all on one line is going in the right direction. I've just removed the English regions and alpha-sorted the English forces - one one line the sub-division of England doesn't make sense and slows down a user findind what they want. Thanks/wangi 18:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes its much better now. MRSC 20:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hammersfan, I've just reverted your edit which re-instated line breaks. I think we've got to a stage where a number of people agree (largely) on the template (certainly Mrsteviec, Astrotrain, myself)... Can you try and talk over your concerns first rather than jumping right in? It's not good having the template this volatile. Thanks/wangi 13:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, how about this. Here's how it looks now:

Here's how I believe it should be:

I'd appreciate opinions as to which of these is clearer and easier to navigate Hammersfan 13/07/06

With regards to the flag icon I don't mind. Of the two options above I find the first more appropriate - it is smaller (half the size roughly) and makes better use of the available space. Thanks/wangi 13:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Surely though clarity should be a more important factor than use of space. Hammersfan 13/07/06, 14.40 BST

I think they're both clear. I've put a pointer to this discussion on Talk:Policing in the United Kingdom and Talk:List of police forces in the United Kingdom. Thanks/wangi 13:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The flag doesn't really matter but option 1 is definitely better. It's only a footer and should use an economy of space. MRSC 22:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

In that case, perhaps we should dispense with categorising by country and just have one single alphabetical list - after all, each article page has a map to show whether the force is from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or a national one. Hammersfan 14/07/06, 15.30 BST

"I suggest you see discussion - no objection raised in seven days to this layout."

Nor any support ;) You've got people above saying they're happy with the version all on one line with country divisions - lets just leave it like that eh? It confuses the matter too that the edit was with an IP account. Thanks/wangi 12:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

My vote (as before) is to leave as is. MRSC 13:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

{{UK Police1}}

I'm surprised (or perhaps not, since it's obviously not important enough) that no one has objected to the layout of the {{UK Police1}} template. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.31.40.145 (talk • contribs) 2006-07-25 09:55:42 (UTC)

See Template talk:UK Police1#Reformat. Thanks/wangi 09:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Further detail

This template shows the main territorial forces for the UK. It does this rather well. There is a lot of further information it could show, however there needs to be discussion here about what that should be. I am of the opinion that adding anything further needlessly clutters the template and creates redundancy with Policing in the United Kingdom or List of police forces in the United Kingdom, which is a far more suitable forum to elaborate on details of current police operations. MRSC 12:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Other agencies

Somewhere, maybe not here, we should include Border and Immigration Agency, Health and Safety Executive, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and Serious Fraud Office (UK). ninety:one 11:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Multi-force agencies

I'm thinking that agencies such as the Central Motorway Police Group should have their own group in the table (named something like "Regional units" of "Joint agencies", rather than being in the footer bar of the table. If no-one objects I'll implement this change in a few days. --RFBailey (talk) 20:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

No-one said anything, so I went ahead. --RFBailey (talk) 19:16, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Seems a bit odd only two forces get listed when there are about a dozen on Road Policing Unit. Shouldn't all be listed (perhaps via a single link) or none for consistency? Deku-shrub (talk) 09:56, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Unwieldy template

This template has become unwieldy and actually inaccurate. The title of the template is Police Forces of the United Kingdom. This really should be limited to the 43 territorial forces of England & Wales, Police Scotland and the PSNI. Plus special police forces such as BTP, CNC and MOD police. Also, probably the NCA should be included, though legally this is not a police force. The rest of the various units and regional squads listed are not police forces and the template is therefore misleading. I will start altering it unless there is any objections? Dibble999 (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Split proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to move the regional and national policing units to a new navbox Terasail^[Talk] 14:01, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

---

This navbox template is quite large and does not just cover the Police forces of the United Kingdom like its title implies. Therefore I suggest that the templates Be reduced to just the Territorial police forces & Special police forces. Where the Regional counter terrorism & Regional organised crime (coordinated by NCA) & Regional motorway policing be put into a new navbox labeld "United Kingdom regional policing units" and the National section be placed into its own navbox labeld "United Kingdom Policing Agencies", excluding the Special police forces. This would make the navboxes apply to their specific articles and would allow for easier understanding of the navbox and would reduce confusion between agencies which are not police forces. Terasail^[Talk] 19:30, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the box has got too massive and covers all sorts of units which of themselves are certainly not police forces. In legal terms you have the 43 territorial police forces of England & Wales, Police Scotlant and the PSNI for territorial police forces. Special police forces then add another 3, BTP, MOD Police and Civil Nuclear Constabulary. Although technically not a police force I think the NCA should be part of this box as they are a specialist law enforcement agency with powers of arrest working alongside all of the above. All the other regional and specialist units are not police forces but are staffed by officers either on attachement or secondment from their home force. The ROCUs, regional counter terrorist units and motorway units along with wildlife etc etc should not be part of this box. The only other to mention is the very small ports contabularies. They perhaps should be part of a new force box. Bowchaser (talk) 14:37, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree with the principle. By way of background, there is also Template:UK home nations law enforcement agencies (non-police) covering national non-police agencies, and Template:UK private and military police forces includes the port ones already - best to keep those there I think. I think the territorial police forces, special police forces and the NCA should stay here, and all the national & regional units should go into a separate navbox - I think that is what Bowchaser (talk · contribs) has said above as well. ninety:one 18:26, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add Isle of Man and Channel Islands

Comment it would be useful to have the Isle of Man and Channel Island police forces in the template. C. 22468 Talk to me 16:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Coolguy22468: Since this navbox template is for UK home nations police forces and neither the Isle of Man or Channel Islands are not part of the UK it does not seem appropriate to add these to this navbox. Terasail^[Talk] 19:51, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The reasons I suggested it was because for the Fire Brigade and the Ambulance service templates they include the Crown Dependencies. C. 22468 Talk to me 18:29, 23 August 2020 (UTC)