The Police Vetting Toolkit
On 26 August 2026, a south east Police service wrote to every council and contracted CCTV control rooms in their area demanding that operators who use a police Airwave radio hold Non-Police Personnel Vetting (NPPV) Level 2 Full clearance, a considerably higher standard than the Level 1 vetting, or the BS 7858 screening and BS 7958 certification, that most control rooms already hold today. We expect this to be the first force of many to do this, and over time this is likely to reach most control rooms with a police Airwave radio terminal.
Why this matters to you
The grounds forces are citing, official sensitive information, the control room's classification as police premises, unsupervised systems access, secret material, national guidance or public confidence, are being asserted without the evidence to support them. They do not hold up well against the College of Policing's own Vetting Authorised Professional Practice (May 2025), which sets no fixed vetting level for council CCTV staff and never mentions Airwave radio at all.
The inconsistency runs across every source that touches this question. The Framework Service Level Agreement (April 2026), the one document that actually states a “nationally agreed” vetting level, sets it at NPPV Level 2 (Abbreviated), not Full. The Airwave Service Code of Practice states no NPPV level at all, only the baseline BPSS standard. And the College of Policing - Vetting Authorised Professional Practice never mentions Airwave radio once in its 350 pages. The Police's demand for Full NPPV2 is the outlier, not the standard other forces or documents point to.
Left untested, a demand made to one control room risks becoming the precedent the next force reaches for. And the practical risks are real: His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services has recorded NPPV vetting delays exceeding six months in some forces, which prioritise vetting their own recruits over external applicants. An existing, already-vetted operator can be refused the higher clearance outright, and no force has yet committed to funding the applications, the staffing cover needed while they are pending, or the cost of a refusal.
What we've built for you
We've launched the Police Vetting Toolkit, a self-assessment at vetting.cctvusergroup.com that takes your control room through five tests against your force's vetting demand:
Does the Vetting Authorised Professional Practice name CCTV operators at this vetting level?
Does the level demanded match what the rest of the guidance actually says?
Has the police force evidenced unsupervised access to police computer systems?
Are your operators already screened to BS 7858, in a service certificated to BS 7958?
Does the police force's own vetting procedure name CCTV, CCTV Operators or Airwave?
The toolkit produces a tailored clarification response letter for you to send to the force, a plain summary of where the case stands, and an evidence checklist to prepare in advance. It also asks who at the force made the classification decision behind the demand, since that should trace to the force's Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO), not vetting staff alone.
As a member, your access is free.
The Protocol behind the toolkit is not a legal or regulatory document. It's our own practical analysis, built from the same national guidance a police force's demand should be based on, and refined through real demands members have received, starting with the example above.
If your CCTV control room uses a police Airwave radio, please read it, and get in touch if you've received a letter about vetting from police of your own, so we can add your force's position to our sector-wide national register.
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