Leadership

The NPCC Chair is supported by two Vice Chairs, each of whom conduct their NPCC role in addition to their full-time operational role as Chief Constables. The Vice Chairs act as peer advisors and provide support to the Chair and deputise in their absence.

Jeremy Vaughan - Chief Constable of South Wales Police

Jeremy Vaughan was promoted to Chief Constable of South Wales Police in November 2020.

Jeremy began his policing career in 1996 with North Wales Police. He served the communities of North Wales across a number of roles for twenty years, working up to the rank of Chief Superintendent, where he took responsibility for Local Policing Services.

In 2016 Jeremy transferred to South Wales Police as Assistant Chief Constable with responsibility for Specialist Operations, including Professional Standards, Criminal Justice, Operational Planning and the Public Service Centre. In December 2017, he took responsibility for the Territorial Policing portfolio including leading on Neighbourhood and Response Policing. He remained as head of this portfolio until he was promoted to Deputy Chief Constable in 2019.

In addition to his force responsibilities, Jeremy is the UK Police lead for Facial Matching (Identification), supporting the national development and use of facial recognition technology by the police forces of England and Wales.

Jeremy is the Welsh lead for gender equality and was recognised for his work in this area by the International Association of Women in Policing in 2019 with the HeForShe award. He has a strong track record in leading on equalities and in 2019 was recognised with a Leading Wales Award – Leadership in Diversity and Inclusion.

A fluent Welsh speaker, Jeremy was appointed to the Gorsedd Cymru in 2019 for services to the Welsh language, which reflects his work within South Wales Police in promoting the use of Welsh and improving the service the force provides to individuals within Welsh-speaking communities.

Jeremy is married and has three children.

Victoria Fuller – Chief Constable of Cleveland Police

Victoria started her career in policing in 1999, joining Durham Constabulary where she served for 23 years.

Victoria worked predominantly in crime investigation roles and was the first female Senior Investigating Officer in Durham Police.

Joining Cleveland police in May 2022 as Assistant Chief Constable, Victoria was promoted to Deputy Chief Constable the following February (2023), a role in which she has driven significant improvements in operational and organisational performance aimed at delivering a better service to the people of Teesside.

Victoria has a passion for safeguarding vulnerable people and problem solving. Throughout her career Victoria has worked in several and varied policing functions and at a strategic level. She is a trained and accredited Strategic Firearms Commander and is multi agency Gold incident command trained.

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Williams is the Strategic Lead for the National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC). His role is integral to enhancing policing nationally, but also across the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories. He is the National Mobilisation Coordinator, and is responsible for Strategic Intelligence and Briefing. In addition, he Chairs the National Police Chiefs' Council Civil Contingencies portfolio, and works closely with lead government departments and key stakeholders to enhance preparedness for civil emergencies.

Mark joined Lothian and Borders Police in 1993 and was Divisional Commander of Edinburgh City upon the inception of Police Scotland in 2013.

He was promoted to the rank of Assistant Chief Constable in 2015, initially undertaking responsibility for local policing in the West of Scotland before moving to his previous role as Head of Operational Support Division in 2018.

ACC Williams was the Police Scotland lead and Strategic Co-ordination Group chair for EU Exit; the strategic partnership lead in respect of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and he was recently the Gold Commander for the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships.

He has extensive experience as an major events commander, Strategic Firearms Commander and Gold Public Order Commander. 

Assistant Chief Constable Sam Millar QGM

Before joining policing, Sam spent time after university in the army as a commissioned officer. Sam became an accomplished adventurer and was the first female officer to undertake Arctic warfare survival accreditation. After a tour of duty in Northern Ireland, Sam was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal, something she would describe as the proudest moment of her service.

Sam started her policing career in West Yorkshire Police in 1993 and transferred to North Yorkshire Police in 2019. She is an experienced public order and firearms commander and has recently been nominated for awards around her activity in coaching and mentoring.

Sam joined the police as a graduate entrant, was selected as part of a fast-track promotion scheme, undertaking roles at every rank in operational delivery in some of the most complex and challenging areas within West Yorkshire and specialist operation roles. After a short spell as staff officer, Sam’s interest in partnerships saw her head up a large community safety partnership in Leeds in 2014, known as Safer Leeds. In this role, Sam had strategic responsibility for a range of safeguarding work streams. She has influenced the national agenda around policing street sex working, has held roles as deputy chair of adults and children safeguarding boards and was recognised locally and nationally for her innovative and influential work with her Safer Leeds Team in developing the multi-agency safeguarding hub in Leeds.

In December 2018 Sam completed a master programme with the University of Cambridge in criminology, using it as an opportunity to research and evidence the operational impact of a multi-agency approach to tackling on-street sex working.

Sam previously served on the NPCC Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Taskforce as a Chief Superintendent, working as the Programme Lead. Sam secured promotion to the rank of Assistant Chief Constable and became the new NPCC Strategic Progamme Director for VAWG in November 2023.

T/Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dr Alison Heydari is the appointed Programme Director for the Police Race Action Plan. The role of the Programme Director is to lead the direction of the Plan, working with communities, the NPCC, national portfolio leads (including Stop and Search), College of Policing, Chief Constables, police officers, and staff.

Alison’s career began in 2000, policing with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary as a student officer. She was enrolled onto the Home Office Accelerated Promotion Scheme for Graduates, seeing her promoted to Sergeant with just over two years of service. 

Alison has a 22 year track record in driving change in equality, diversity and inclusion. She has also worked in a wide range of specialist roles including, public protection, criminal investigations, hate crime, human trafficking and child abuse. Her operational experience has been complemented by secondments to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue and teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice New York.

Alison is also a trained Negotiator, and a Public Order and Public Safety Gold Commander. 

Alison joined the Metropolitan Police Service in June 2020, serving as a Frontline Policing Commander, with additional responsibility for a number of portfolios including, as lead for neighbourhood policing. Her passion for the implementation of Procedural Justice is reflected in her commentaries, published papers and research.

Alison was appointed as Programme Director in September 2023. Her priority will be focusing on what will build trust, confidence and legitimacy, including:

• A comprehensive community strategy and delivery plan.
• Ensuring meaningful engagement with stakeholders.
• Prioritising activity which will make the biggest positive difference to Black communities.
• Ensuring those carrying out this vital work have the necessary resources to do it well.

Professor Paul Taylor was appointed as the first National Policing Chief Scientific Adviser in May 2021. The Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser focuses on crime prevention and using emerging evidence, research and innovation in science and technology, including in both data and behavioural science, to advise policing on both the opportunities and risks to help reduce crime. 

Paul Taylor is Professor of Psychology at Lancaster University, Professor of Human Interaction at the University of Twente, and director of the UK Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST).

Established in 2015, CREST has brought together over 140 researchers from 35 universities and SMEs to deliver research that informs policy and practice in security and policing.

Before this, Professor Taylor established Lancaster’s Institute for security research, leading staff and students from ten departments and growing an interdisciplinary strength that still defines the Institute’s contribution today.

Professor Taylor’s research uses modelling and experimentation to understand and predict human cooperation and violence. Its implications have helped in the prevention of serious crime, the negotiation of hostage crises, and the use of data in national security.

Over his career Professor Taylor has contributed science advice to a number of high profile police investigations in the UK and overseas. In 2005 he received a Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner Commendation for his contributions.

Gemma Stannard is a senior police staff leader with significant experience in the analysis, business planning, strategy and change arenas. Gemma’s policing career started when she joined Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 2000. Over the next eight years she developed her expertise in analysis through accomplishments including working as the lead analyst on Operation Fincham (the investigation in the murders of the Soham school girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman).

Gemma joined Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies in 2012 forming and leading the Joint Performance and Analysis Department and subsequently integrating this with the Corporate Change department. Having passed the Senior Police National Assessment Centre (PNAC), Gemma completed the Strategic Command Course (SCC) in 2020.

In April 2020 Gemma was seconded to NPCC and Operation Talla (the national policing response to COVID-19) to lead the national recovery, reform and organisational learning programme. In June 2021, Gemma was appointed as the Head of the NPCC Strategic Hub.