ACPO and the Freedom of Information Act 2000

ACPO is a private company and the Office of the Information Commissioner has confirmed that the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the Association, since Schedule 1 of the Act does not include a definition which covers ACPO.

Nonetheless, ACPO is very willing to place much of its information in the public domain. Some of this information is already published on this web site, mainly in the section headed ‘Policies’.

What ACPO 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. Accordingly, ACPO is adopting a policy of responding to requests for information only if it is readily available and can be swiftly transmitted to the inquirer; that implies requests by e-mail to info@acpo.police.uk for single, clearly identified documents which do not contain sensitive material. Other requests for information will be politely refused.

A copy of the ACPO Freedom of Information Manual is attached. It has been drawn up for the guidance of members of the public who are considering making a request for information from a police force.