National Policing Improvement Agency

The United Kingdom's National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) is a non-departmental public body established to support police by providing expertise in such areas as information technology, information sharing, and recruitment.

Background

The National Policing Improvement Agency became operational on 1 April 2007. The agency took over the work of several precursor agencies including the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO), Centrex (including the National Centre for Policing Excellence), and a small number of Home Office staff. PITO and Centrex were both abolished when the NPIA became operational, and has formal responsibilities for police forces in England and Wales but, unlike PITO, not for the eight Scottish forces.

The NPIA was proposed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (England & Wales) as a response to the UK Government's green paper Building Safer Communities Together. The stated objective of the NPIA is to support i) the delivery of more effective policing and ii) a culture of self-improvement around policing in the United Kingdom. Unlike PITO, it is not solely a supplier of national police IT systems.

The key priorities of the NPIA are set by the National Policing Board, established in July 2006 to help strengthen the governance of policing in England and Wales. The National Policing Board, chaired by the Home Secretary, has a tripartite membership from the Home Office, ACPO and the APA.

The motivations for creating the NPIA were laid...
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