Association of Chief Police Officers

The ACPO Criminal Records Office (ACRO) was set up in 2006 in response to a perceived gap in the police service's ability to manage criminal records and in particular to improve links to biometric data. The initial aim of ACRO was to provide operational support relating to criminal records and associated biometric data, including DNA and fingerprint recognition.

It also issues police certificates, for a fee, needed to obtain immigration visas for countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cayman Islands, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States.[12]

The organisation continues under the style "ACRO Criminal Records Office" under the control of Hampshire Constabulary.[13]

Between 17 January 2023 and 21 March 2023, a two-month cybersecurity incident[14] affected the ACPO Criminal Records Office (ACRO) website.[15] On 21 March 2023,[16] ACRO announced that applications were no longer available online.[17] Applications for police certificates, crucial for some visas to New Zealand,[18] the United States,[19] and Canada,[20] are being processed manually by email,[21] during the forced shut down, until the systems are fixed.[22]

The Association of Chief Police Officers Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (AVCIS), later the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NAVCIS), was managed by ACPO, and was responsible for combating organised vehicle crime and the use of vehicles in crime.[23]

The National Community Tension Team (NCTT) was an ACPO body which monitored religious, racial, or other tensions within communities, and provided liaison between police forces and community organisations.[24]

The National Counter Terrorism Security Office was funded by, and reported to, ACPO and advised the British government on its counter terrorism strategy.[25]

ACPO was responsible for coordinating the national mobilisation of police resources at times of national need through the Police National Information and Co-ordination Centre (PNICC), which it set up in 2003.[26] This included ensuring policing resilience during major events such as emergency response to serious flooding or the investigation of a terrorist attack. PNICC sat alongside the government in COBR (Cabinet Office Briefing Room) to advise on national issues. PNICC also handled support to overseas crises involving UK nationals.

It employed three full-time staff, with other staff seconded to it as needed and is funded by contributions from each of the police forces.[26]

The Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) was set up in 2010 by ACPO (and run by the Metropolitan Police) to remove unlawful terrorist material content from the Internet with a focus on UK based material.

The December 2013 report of the Prime Minister's Extremism task force,[27] said that it would "work with internet companies to restrict access to terrorist material online which is hosted overseas but illegal under UK law" and "work with the internet industry to help them in their continuing efforts to identify extremist content to include in family-friendly filters" which would likely involve lobbying ISPs to add the CTIRU list to their filters without the need for additional legislation.

The National Wildlife Crime Unit is a national police unit that gathers intelligence on wildlife crime and provides analytical and investigative support to law enforcement agencies.

ACPO had been criticised as being unaccountable to Parliament or the public by virtue of its limited company status.[28] In October 2009, Sir Hugh Orde stated that ACPO would be "more than happy" to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.[29] On 30 March 2010, the Ministry of Justice announced that ACPO would be included under the FOI Act from October 2011.[30] In its response, the organisation stated that "Although organisations cannot voluntarily comply with the Act, a large proportion of ACPO's work is public already or available under FOI through any police force".[31] In January 2011 its website still said it: "is unable to do is to respond to requests for information under the Act. The organisation is too small and there are too few members of staff to be able to conduct the necessary research and to compile the responses".[32] From November 2011, however, FOI requests could be made to ACPO.[33]

The organisation was criticised in February 2010 for allegedly spending £1.6 million per year from government anti-terrorist funding grants on renting up to 80 apartments in the centre of London which were reported as being empty most of the time.[34] The organisation responded that it had reviewed this policy and would reduce the number of apartments.[34]

As a result of The Guardian articles with regards to the activities and accusations of PC Mark Kennedy of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit within the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, and the collapse of the subsequent trial of six activists, a number of initiatives and changes were announced:[35]

• Acknowledging that "something had gone very wrong" in the Kennedy case to the Home Affairs Select Committee,[36] Home Office minister Nick Herbert stated that ACPO would lose control of three teams involved in tackling domestic extremism. Herbert announced that the units would be transferred to the Metropolitan Police, with acting commissioner Tim Godwin confirming that this would occur at the earliest possible timescale.[35]
• Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary announced that Bernard Hogan-Howe would lead an investigation into ACPO, to assess whether undercover operations had been "authorised in accordance with law" and "proportionate".[35]
• The Association of Police Authorities said it was ending its annual £850,000 grant to ACPO.

ACPO has supervised the creation of one of the world's largest per-capita DNA databases, containing the DNA profiles of more than one million unconvicted people. ACPO's guidelines that these profiles should only be deleted in "exceptional circumstances" were found to be unlawful by the UK Supreme Court in May 2011.[37] They were found to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, following the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in S and Marper v United Kingdom. On 1 May 2012, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 completed its passage through Parliament and received Royal Assent. Up until it ceased to exist in 2015, ACPO did not reissue revised guidelines to replace its unlawful DNA exceptional procedure. Big Brother Watch, in a report of June 2012, has adopted the view that, despite the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the retention of DNA in England and Wales remains an uncertain and illiberal regime.

During the summer of 2011, Hugh Orde, then president of the ACPO, was seen wearing a dark blue police-style uniform with ACPO insignia, and was accused of wearing a fake uniform. Senior police officers claimed that the uniform was not that of any police force in the country but "closely resembled" the uniform worn by former Metropolitan Police commissioner, Paul Stephenson. Sam Leith, an author, journalist and literary editor of The Spectator, mocked Orde's decision "to wear this Gadaffi-style pretend uniform on television", and suggested it was "a subliminal pitch for the Met Commissioner's job."[38] Brian Paddick, at the time the police commander for the London Borough of Lambeth, said: "It's unusual for the president of ACPO to appear in all these interviews in uniform. He is sending a clear signal: how would I look in the commissioner's uniform?"[39][40]