Part 1: Protection of the police etc. Section 1: Police covenant report
Section 1 establishes a new duty for the Secretary of State, in each financial year, to prepare a police covenant report, and lay it before Parliament.
	Subsection (2) sets out the substantive areas on which the report must focus, namely the health and wellbeing and physical protection of members and former members of the police workforce, and support for their families. The report must address those issues insofar as they relate to individuals’ current or previous role in the police workforce.
	Subsection (2)(d) allows the Secretary of State to also address in the report other areas they consider appropriate to include. This provides an element of flexibility where particular issues arise that the Secretary of State considers ought to receive attention in the report in a given year.
	Subsection (3) requires that, in putting together the police covenant report, the Secretary of State must have regard in particular to the sacrifices made by and obligations imposed on members of the police workforce. In doing so, subsection (3)(b) also requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the desire to remove any disadvantage that members and former members of the police workforce may experience as a result of their role.
	Under subsection (4), in preparing the report the Secretary of State must ensure the views of other relevant Government departments and anyone else deemed appropriate by the Secretary of State are sought, and, under subsection (5), either set out in full or summarised.
	Subsection (6) requires that, before a summary of any views obtained under subsection (4) can be included in the Police Covenant report, the person who provided the view in question must approve that summary.
	Under subsection (7), the report must state the Secretary of State’s view as to whether members or former members of the police workforce, or a particular group within that demographic, are at a disadvantage in comparison to such other people as the Secretary of State considers appropriate. Subsection (8) requires that the Secretary of State’s response to any such disadvantage identified under subsection (7) is to be set out in the report.
	Subsection (9) defines terms for the purpose of this section, including ‘members of the police workforce’ which includes for these purposes members of police forces in England Wales, special constables appointed under section 27 of the Police Act 1996; staff appointed by the chief officer of police of a police force in England and Wales and persons designated as community support volunteers or policing support volunteers under section 38 of the Police Reform Act 2002 (the "2002 Act"). It also includes constables and special constables (appointed under section 25 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 (the "2003 Act")) of the British Transport Police Force; employees of the British Transport Police Authority appointed under section 27 of the 2003 Act and under the direction and control of the Chief Constable of the British Transport Police Force; persons designated as community support volunteer or policing support volunteers under s.38 of the 2002 Act as applied by section 28 of the 2003 Act. In addition it includes members of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary; employees of the Civil Nuclear Police Authority employed under paragraph 6 of Schedule 10 of the Energy Act 2004 if, or to the extent that they are employed to assist the Civil Nuclear Constabulary; members of the Ministry of Defence Police and other persons under the direction and control of the Chief Constable of the Ministry of Defence Police; and National Crime Agency officers.
	It also makes clear that ‘former members of the police workforce’ means persons who have ceased to be members of the police workforce. The section also defines ‘financial year’ as the period beginning with the day on which the section comes into force ending with the following 31 March and then every successive period of 12 months. It goes on to define a ‘relevant Government department’ as a UK Government department, apart from Home Office, which the Secretary of State considers has functions relevant to a matter covered by the report.
	As one of the aspects the report must focus on is support for families, subsection (10) makes clear that the reference to ‘members of the families of members and former members of the police workforce’ in subsection (2) means such descriptions of persons connected with members or former members of the police workforce as the Secretary of State considers should be covered by the report.