There has been little comment from ACPO regarding the debacle of undercover police officers going native and being outed in the press. There is a bland release on the ACPO website from the President of ACPO, Sir Hugh Orde (pictured above.) All this says is that ACPO support a reform of the current system.
ACPO PLC is not a staff association. It is largely funded by the Home Office and the Police Authorities and its main functions are to develop policy and provide advice to the Government on policing matters. ACPO also makes significant amounts of money from private enterprise. For example, they made £18 million last year from CRB checks. One has to question why ACPO were allowed to take on this money making enterprise while other loss making functions, such as Airwave, PNC etc. have been dumped on the NPIA.
It would appear that ACPO have failed dismally with the national co-ordination of specialist and high level undercover officers. The poisoned chalice is now being passed to the Met and will undoubtedly move to the National Crime Agency, when that organisation is set up from the ashes of the NPIA etc.
It will leave ACPO with the police national information and co-ordination centre, national community tension team, and the vehicle crime intelligence service known as Truckpol. I think we should have a good look at all these other functions and consider whether or not ACPO PLC is the best place for them. Moving the lot to the National Crime Agency, including the profit making CRB checks, would seem to be sensible. We can then stop the £15 million Home Office grant to ACPO and it can disappear into the ether, never to be missed.
