When Industry Pays for Policing – Where Is the Line?
A recent Court of Appeal judgment concerning an insurance-industry-funded police unit deserves rather more attention than it has received.
Not because the Court found the arrangement unlawful. It did not.
But because, in deciding that the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) remained sufficiently independent, the Court identified safeguards which plainly mattered.
In R v Moore & Anor [2026] EWCA Crim 209, the Court noted that IFED’s funding was arranged at arm’s length, payments were fixed in advance, insurers did not control individual investigations and, importantly, there was no incentive element linked to the success of a case.
That raises an obvious wider question.
What about other industry-funded police units?
For example, the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS) describes itself as entirely industry-funded. Its Investigations Team is funded by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) and primarily supports FLA members.
That does not, of itself, establish anything improper. But the Moore judgment provides a useful benchmark.
- Are NaVCIS payments entirely fixed in advance?
- Is any part of the funding mechanism connected with referrals, seizures, recoveries or vehicle values?
- How clearly separated are those who fund the service, those who may benefit from its work, and those exercising police powers?
- And where can the public see the agreements and safeguards which protect operational independence?
These questions matter because police powers are public powers.
Vehicles may be seized. Property retained. Investigations commenced.
Anyone affected should be entitled to confidence that such decisions are made solely for policing reasons — not because of who ultimately funds the unit involved.
The Court of Appeal has now shown us some of the protections which helped make one industry-funded policing arrangement acceptable. It seems entirely reasonable to ask whether the same assurances can be given elsewhere.
When industry pays for policing, transparency is not optional. It is part of the safeguard.
When the police exercise their powers, who are they policing for?
An attempt to obtain further information concerning NaVCIS, including aspects of its activities and funding, did not result in disclosure.
The original request and correspondence can be read on WhatDoTheyKnow, and my subsequent Internal Review submission links are below.
The NPCC refused the request under section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act, relying upon the cumulative burden of previous requests and what it described as a “tipping point” at which the latest request became vexatious.
The NPCC refused the request under section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act, relying upon the cumulative burden of previous requests and what it described as a “tipping point” at which the latest request became vexatious.
The history of that calculation has subsequently become an issue in itself.
The original refusal and Internal Review identified 10 entries as relevant previous requests. Yet 4 of those entries were not separate information requests; they included internal reviews and an ICO appeal relating to earlier requests. In other words, 6 actual requests were cited in support of the cumulative-burden argument.
However, during the subsequent proceedings, the NPCC referred to 37 earlier requests made over just over three years.
Then, approximately 35 minutes before the Tribunal hearing, the NPCC supplied a further schedule recording 34 earlier requests. During the hearing, it was not established whether the request under appeal was itself included within that figure or was the next entry in the chronology.
Accordingly, the precise point at which the NPCC considered the cumulative history to have crossed the relevant “tipping point”, and the evidential basis for identifying that point, could not be clearly established during the hearing.
That is notable because the existence of such a tipping point formed a substantial part of the justification relied upon for applying section 14. If this particular request was said to have crossed that line, it might reasonably be expected that the NPCC could identify which request number it represented and what cumulative history had caused the line to be crossed.
The appeal has now been heard and the Tribunal’s decision is awaited.
I will update this article when that decision is published
Internal Review submission:
- The Internal Review Request
- FoIA & ‘Vexatious’
- FLA & the FoIA
- FoIA ‘Value & Serious Purpose:
- FoIA & ‘Motive’
- FoIA & ‘Burden’
- FoIA & ‘Overwhelming’
- FoIA ‘Distress &/or Obstruction’
- FoIA ‘191 emails’
- FoIA ‘Senior Management Discussions’
- FoIA resources
- FoIA & ‘Response Timeliness’
- FoIA ‘Prior FoIA Requests’
- FoIA ‘Similar Requests’
