Outcome 22: the disposal most PSRs don’t ask for

Most police station representatives don’t ask for Outcome 22 by name. Many don’t know they can. The result: children and adults who could have walked out of custody with no caution or conviction end up with a recorded sanction instead, because the better disposal was on the table and nobody named it.

If you do police station work, Outcome 22 is one of the most useful tools in the disposal hierarchy. It is also one of the most underused. This post explains what it is, when it fits, and how to argue for it.

What Outcome 22 Actually Is

Outcome 22 is a Home Office Counting Rules outcome code, introduced on a voluntary basis from April 2019. The official wording is:

“Diversionary, educational or intervention activity, resulting from the crime report, has been undertaken and it is not in the public interest to take any further action.”

It is used where the police agree that a structured intervention is the appropriate response and that no formal sanction is required. NPCC guidance (updated 2022) sets out the disposal in detail and is explicit that it is for use with both adult and youth cases.

Four things matter about it.

First, no criminal record results. Outcome 22 is not a caution and it is not a conviction.

Second, no admission of guilt is required. Unlike a caution, which is a recorded admission, Outcome 22 records that diversionary activity took place. The client does not have to accept the offence to receive the disposal. This is a material distinction for clients whose evidential position is mixed but who would benefit from intervention.

Third, a structured intervention has to happen for the disposal to be available, a restorative meeting, an educational session, an addiction-service referral, a domestic-abuse perpetrator programme, a brief intervention. The disposal is the recording of that activity, not an alternative to it.

Fourth, the disposal is recorded on police systems against the crime report. It does not appear on standard DBS checks. It can appear on enhanced DBS checks at the discretion of the chief officer, where the police consider the information relevant to the specific role, the same discretionary framework that applies to other non-conviction information under Part V of the Police Act 1997.

Where It Sits in the Disposal Hierarchy

The disposal options at the police station stage are graduated, from least to most serious:

• No further action (NFA) with words of advice, no intervention required, no record
• Community resolution, informal, often street-level, no record
• Outcome 22, structured intervention recorded, no caution or conviction, no admission required
• Caution, Youth Caution (s.66ZA Crime and Disorder Act 1998) or adult conditional caution (s.22 Criminal Justice Act 2003); formal, on the record, admission of guilt required
• Youth Conditional Caution (s.66A and s.66B CDA 1998), formal, with conditions, admission required
• Charge, court-stage disposal

Outcome 22 sits between community resolution and the formal caution. For the right case it is the strongest disposal that does not leave a caution-or-conviction record and does not require an admission. That is its commercial value, in police-station representation terms.

When Outcome 22 Fits

Four conditions need to hold:

• The matter is at the lower end of seriousness, for children, gravity 1 or low gravity 2 on the NPCC Child Gravity Matrix; for adults, a comparable low-gravity matter under local force frameworks.
• A community resolution would not provide sufficient intervention. The client needs something, a restorative meeting with the complainant, a session with a treatment service, a structured educational activity, but they do not need a recorded sanction.
• There is a deliverable intervention. The Youth Offending Team has capacity (for children), or there is a local scheme (a brief-intervention provider, a restorative-justice service, an addiction service, a domestic-abuse perpetrator programme), and the intervention can be arranged.
• The public interest does not require formal sanction. This is the test in the HOCR wording itself.

Where all four hold, Outcome 22 is the right answer. It is more proportionate than a caution and more constructive than a community resolution.

Why It Is Underused

Three reasons. Custody sergeants don’t always raise it because their default routes are caution or charge, the disposals they process most often. YOT officers and L&D practitioners raise it more readily because it is the intervention-led route. But the YOT or L&D officer may not be the one in the room with the custody sergeant when the disposal decision is made.

That is where the police station representative matters. At the station, the PSR is often the only person in the conversation thinking about the full range of disposals. Custody sergeants who have not been asked for Outcome 22 in years will respect a representative who knows what it is and asks for it specifically.

The third reason is that representatives themselves may not know the disposal in detail. The framework is wide and the syllabus is heavy. Outcome 22 is the kind of disposal that sits in the long tail of options that a busy practitioner can lose track of. The fix is to know it by name, know when it fits, and ask for it.

How to Argue for It

The script is short and the structure is the same as for any disposal argument:

PSR (to custody sergeant): “Sergeant, I am making representations on disposal. My client is 14, first contact with the system. The alleged offending is gravity 1 on the NPCC Child Gravity Matrix. A community resolution would not provide sufficient intervention here, the family has asked for a structured response. Outcome 22 with a YOT-led restorative meeting fits the case. YOT triage is available today. Can I ask the force to dispose of this as Outcome 22?”

For an adult client the argument shape adjusts slightly:

PSR (to custody sergeant): “Sergeant, I am making representations on disposal. My client has acknowledged that the offending is linked to a substance-misuse problem they have not previously addressed. The matter is low gravity. Liaison and Diversion can refer today. An Outcome 22 with engagement in addiction services would record the intervention without a caution. NPCC guidance supports this for adult cases. Can I ask the force to consider Outcome 22?”

Three things make this work. First, naming the disposal, Outcome 22, not “diversionary activity” generally. Second, anchoring to the relevant framework, NPCC Child Gravity Matrix for children, NPCC Outcome 22 guidance for adults. Third, having the intervention ready, a YOT or L&D referral, a confirmed willing party for restorative meeting, a treatment service on side. The argument is operational, not abstract.

The Limits to Know

Outcome 22 is not a wave-it-away result. The intervention has to actually happen. If the client does not engage, the force can record the original outcome differently, advise the client and any appropriate adult that the disposal carries a commitment.

Outcome 22 is retained on police systems. It is not visible on standard DBS but can be disclosed on enhanced DBS at the chief officer’s discretion. In practice this is rare for low-gravity, well-completed Outcome 22 disposals, but advise the client that the record exists.

Operational availability varies between forces. Some forces have well-developed Outcome 22 schemes with named partner providers; in others, the disposal exists but is rarely used. Knowing the picture in your local custody suite matters.

And the wider framework is uneven between adult and youth advocacy. Youth diversion has had consistent cross-party political support for two decades and is operationally mature. Adult diversion is patchier, the new Diversionary Caution under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 has been enacted but not yet commenced, and the named pre-charge schemes (Checkpoint, Turning Point, drug-diversion pilots) exist in some force areas and not others. Outcome 22 itself is available for both, but the surrounding framework is thinner on the adult side.

Bottom Line

Where you have a client, child or adult, a low-gravity matter, and a deliverable intervention, Outcome 22 is the strongest disposal that does not leave a caution-or-conviction record and does not require an admission of guilt. It is built into the disposal framework precisely for cases like this. The custody sergeant will not always raise it. The PSR who knows it by name and asks for it specifically is doing one of the most consequential things a police station representative does: making sure their client leaves custody with the right disposal, not the default one.

”Outcome 22 is the most under-asked-for disposal in the disposal framework. Where the case fits, ask for it by name. Most custody sergeants will respect a PSR who knows what Outcome 22 is and what it is for.”

— AccrediLaw senior practitioner

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