Direct Communications Unit

2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF

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E-mail: [Home Office request email] Website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk

[FOI #8160 email]

Mr John Brown

Reference: T3362/9

Dear Mr Brown,

Thank you for your e-mail of 22 February in which you clarified your original FOI Act request made on 16 February. In your original request you asked for five pieces of information:

(a) electronic copies of any correspondence relating to the establishment of the ACRO “service”;

(b) were Ministers consulted on the creation of the ACRO?

(c) what Home Office approval has been granted for the for the use of PNC data by ACRO?

(d) why is the "Police Certificate" service provided by ACRO not being delivered by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB)?

(e) was the CRB consulted on the decision to allow ACPO to set up this service and if so what was their response?

In your clarification you clarified that the term ACRO “service” was intended by you to mean the “establishment”, by ACPO, of the ACPO Criminal Records Office (ACRO) which is offering Police Certificates for individuals seeking to live or to work in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Your request has been treated in part as a request under the Freedom of Information Act. The first questions has been treated as a request for information, the next four have been treated as policy questions outside the terms of the Act.

The Home Office does hold some information regarding the creation of the ACPO Criminal Record Office (ACRO). This information is contained in a couple of sources, neither of which were received by or considered by Ministers or officials prior to ACRO being set up. In addition this information is contained within longer documents that contain material that is not within the terms of your request. I am therefore releasing the information to you in the form of a digest, which provides the information as well as the context in which it was written.

There is one further piece of information that the Home Office hold that falls within the terms of your request. This is a letter dated 3^rd October 2006 from Adrian McAlister, then of the Lancashire Constabulary, to the Minister of State at the Home Office. We believe that the information that you have asked for is already reasonably accessible to you. It can be accessed as Annex L in the following link: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/inquiry-criminal-convictions?view=Binary

Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act exempts the Home Office from complying with the duty to supply you with this information on the grounds that it is already in the public domain. Should you have difficulties in accessing this information by the means listed above please do not hesitate to contact me again.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request by submitting your complaint within two months to the below address quoting reference 11365:

Information Rights Team
Information and Record Management Service
Home Office
4th Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Email: [email address]

During the independent review the department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely

Robert Butlin

DIGEST OF INFORMATION RELEASED IN RESPONSE TO THE FOI ACT REQUEST FROM JOHN BROWN.

1. In the context of a note from a Grade 7 in the then Policing Powers and Protection Unit to the Head of Unit dated 10 August 2007.

ACPO Criminal Records Office

The ACPO Criminal Record Office - ACRO sprang from the PNC Weeding Rules Working Group and became operative in around May 2006. Its purpose was to fill a gap in the ability of the police service overall to resource a range of police activities particularly the need to provide operational support and guidance to all police forces in England and Wales on matters relating to police records on the PNC and the linkages between such records, DNA and fingerprint information. As the law then stood, under Section 63 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, DNA samples could only be taken from persons charged with, about to be reported for or convicted of, a recordable offence. Samples could only be retaken if the first sample proved insufficient or unsuitable for analysis - and the DNA samples and profiles had to be destroyed if the individual was not subsequently prosecuted or was acquitted of the offence. In 1999, there were two prosecutions, one for rape (R v B) and one for murder (R v Weir), in which convictions were overturned on appeal despite compelling DNA evidence that linked the defendants to the offence. This was because at the time the matches were made, both defendants had either been acquitted or a decision made not to proceed with the previous offences for which the DNA profiles had been taken. As the law stood at the time, the DNA profiles should have been removed from the Database. This caused considerable public concern and following consideration of these two cases by the House of Lords, the law was changed. The then Home Office Minister Andy Burnham made a Written Ministerial Statement on 16 February 2006 about ACPO guidance on the consideration of removal, in exceptional circumstances only, of DNA and fingerprints from the respective databases.

The ACPO Cabinet agreed to create the ACPO Criminal Records Office. The Council agreed that all 43 forces would fund ACRO. Their charges for PNC services were increased to cover ACRO costs. ACRO originally sought funding of £1.5m pa. We learned during our visit on 27 July that this funding bid was reduced due to unforeseen pressures on police funds.

2. In the context of papers provided for a meeting held on 9 July 2008. This specific paper is undated - we understand it was written in early-mid 2007.

Para 1.1.2 Upon its (the Home Office DNA and Fingerprint Retention Project - our insertion) successful completion in May 2006 the work undertaken was succeeded by the introduction of the ACPO Criminal Records Office, with an enlarged portfolio including both national and international responsibilities. (Sentence redacted as not being relevant)

Para 1.1.3 Governance of ACRO being exercised by a governance board chaired by Deputy Chief Constable Adrian McAllister, Lancashire Constabulary together with representation from a number of key stakeholders.

Para 1.1.6 On 6^th December 2006 the ACPO Cabinet granted ACRO a substantive future funding in the sum of £1m per annum raised through increased PNC subscription charges.

Para 2.1.4 The Project (the Home Office DNA and Fingerprint Retention Project - our insertion) came to a successful conclusion in May 2006, by which time it was considered that a permanent unit needed to be established to deal with the management of criminal records and associated information linked to biometric samples with the capacity to undertake national workstream. Importantly, in place of the annual bid to the Home Office for financial support, a permanent funding stream also needed to be identified to accompany such important work.

Para 2.1.5 As a result at the ACPO Cabinet meeting held on the 3^rd May 2006 and supported by a number of the ACPO portfolio leads together with various Home Office Departments (Note: our understanding is that the bid to ACPO Cabinet did not have formal Home Office support, but instead the good work carried out on the DNA and fingerprint project was noted), a Business Case was successfully presented for the creation of an ACPO Criminal Records Office, thereafter known as ACRO. (Sentence redacted as not being relevant)

Annex - Information provided as clarification outside the terms of the Freedom of Information Act

ACRO was created following an agreement by the ACPO Cabinet. Once ACPO Cabinet had agreed to ACRO's creation the ACPO Council then agreed that all 43 forces would fund ACRO. Ministers were not consulted on the setting up of ACRO. When set up, ACRO's purpose was to fill a gap in the ability of the police service overall to resource a range of police activities particularly the need to provide operational support and guidance to all police forces in England and Wales on matters relating to police records on the PNC and the linkages between such records, DNA and fingerprint information.

Your third questions concerned “permission” given by the Home Office for ACRO to use PNC data. Each force Chief Constable owns the information they put onto PNC for their force area. ACPO as a body represents all 44 individual forces in England & Wales and Northern Ireland, and therefore is the representative owner of all PNC records. The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) manages the PNC equipment and makes this information available, but does not own the actual data. ACRO, as part of ACPO can, and does, have access to all PNC records for the policing work that it provides to forces and other agencies. Its Police Certificates business is charged in a similar manner to other agencies that use PNC data for vetting purposes. This was done to ensure no unfair advantage was provided to any one agency or department.

The Criminal Records Bureau was set up under Part V of the Police Act 1997. This defined its role as the provision of criminal record certificates for individuals seeking employment in the United Kingdom. This remains the CRB's purpose. The CRB was not consulted on the setting up of the ACRO Police Certificates service.