Top police fail to collar help for cash-crisis organisation

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), the limited company that issues policy and guidance on policing across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has been refused almost £58,000 in funding from the region.

South Yorkshire Police Authority members, who voted to withhold more than £19,000 from Acpo in February, backed their decision yesterday despite a renewed appeal by the force’s Chief Constable, Meredydd Hughes.

Mr Hughes, who works in London one day a week as Acpo’s head of uniformed operations, had urged them to reconsider, reporting that the company intended to spend almost £2.5m this year but faced a budget deficit of more than £560,000.

Arguing that Acpo gave the police service a “single, coherent voice”, he criticised the Police Federation, whose members passed a vote of no confidence in the body last month.

“The Police Federation’s vote of no confidence was a farce and frankly a disgrace of which the federation should be ashamed,” Mr Hughes told the authority. “It shows a schism in the leadership of the federation.”

The only police authority in the region to continue funding Acpo is Humberside, which agreed to pay in full the £12,027 requested.

West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire, asked to contribute £31,554 and £7,191 respectively, have both declined.

South Yorkshire Police Federation’s chairman-elect, Neil Bowles, said: “There was an overwhelming majority for the vote of no confidence in Acpo as an organisation.

“Why Mr Hughes thinks there is a schism in the leadership of the federation, I do not know.”