The Association of Chief Police Officers - Parliament

Association of Chief Police Officers –Written evidence• Identifying the lead ACPO Business Area and subject matter expert for eachof the TPMs impacting on UK policing.• Circulation of a standard assessment questionnaire to subject matter experts.• Collation and analysis of the returned questionnaires.• Liaison and information sharing with officials partner agencies.• Stakeholder meetings to discuss emerging findings and a draft paper involvingrepresentatives from: ACPO, NPIA, SOCA, Home Office, Ministry of Justice,CPS, CELS3 The Third Pillar Measures (TPMs)3.1 Categorising the TPMs3.1.1 As of the 1 st January 2012, there were 133 TPMs captured within the remit of theopt-out decision. The number has changed over the course of the year as some ofthe measures are repealed and this reduction will continue right up to December2014 but for ease we will retain this as the original figure.3.1.2 The repeal process needs to be understood as it is important for a number ofmeasures – not least the many measures concerning mutual legal assistance (MLA).The opt-out clause only applies to measures that came into force before the signingof the Lisbon Treaty. However, since that date, EU law has not stood still and moremeasures have been signed. The post-Lisbon measures that HMG signed into arebinding on the UK. In the cases where a post-Lisbon measure takes over from aTPM, the TPM ceases to exist. It is by the process that the 133 TPMs are beingreduced in number. As such the final list is likely to end up being between 100 and120 measures.3.1.3 Of the 133 measures, not all are concerned with law enforcement. Some relate tojudicial matters, some to legislative and some are a mix. 108 measures have beendeemed to be concerned with law enforcement and have been assessed in this paper.3.2 Prioritising the TPMs3.2.1 Each of the 108 TPMs that relate to law enforcement have been considered in depthand the assessment of relevance to UK policing for each of them is shown atAppendix B.3.2.2 From a UK policing perspective, the assessment has categorised the 108 into fivedifferent categories as follows:• TPMs that it is vital that we opt back into - there are 13 of these• TPMs that we should opt back into - there are 16 of these• TPMs that we need not opt back into but if we did they would have nopractical effect on UK policing (and as such we hold no view on them) - thereare 55 of these• TPMs that are not in the interest of UK policing to opt back into - there are12 of these6