Clause 86 creates the new non-departmental public body called the central police training and development authority. Its functions are to provide and promote police training, to give advice and assistance about training and to provide advice and consultancy services to the police on best practice and other matters.

The amendment would change the name of the new body so that it was an agency rather than an authority. As the clause is the first on police training, I shall give some background. Following a thematic inspection of training by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, a House of Commons report by the Select Committee on Home Affairs, a report by Sir William Stubbs and two Police Federation reports, the Government issued a consultation paper in November 1999. It set out some detailed proposals to reform police training. However, as far as I can ascertain, it did not contain a proposal to set up the authority. It proposed various changes to the existing situation, which I shall explain. Police training was divided between national police training and that provided locally by the forces. All forces have their own training centres, some providing specific types of training.