Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether police forces' reliance on internet-delivered cloud services is consistent with their duties as Category 1 responders under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.

Police forces are operationally independent, and Chief Constables are responsible for determining the most appropriate hosting arrangements for their local systems, including the extent to which they utilise internet-delivered cloud services.

As Category 1 responders under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, forces must ensure they are able to maintain critical functions and respond effectively to emergencies. Decisions relating to technology hosting, resilience and business continuity therefore form part of forces' own risk management, resilience and assurance arrangements. The Government does not routinely monitor assessments undertaken by the police

Where national police capabilities are delivered by the Home Office using internet delivered cloud services there is a robust assessment of security, resilience, continuity and operational requirements.