[2] In 2020, the AFP conducted a review of their organisational structure and operating model and subsequently established the Specialist Protection Command on 1 July 2020.
[11] AFP has had charge of local ACT Policing since 1979, and established a full-time tactical unit then known as the Special Operations Team (SOT) replacing the previous part-time group known as the Armed Offenders Squad (AOS).
In January 2005, AFP created what was then known as the Operational Response Team (ORT), a small team of specialist tactical police able to respond and assist AFP officers engaged in the International Deployment Group's response to the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), Solomon Islands.
[11] The SPS provides the AFP with highly trained operational specialist teams capable of rapidly deploying either domestically or internationally in order to solve a variety of medium and high-risk planned and emergency incidents.
Although a sub-unit of AFP's International Deployment Group, SPS report to a committee consisting of both IDG and ACT Policing executive.
[citation needed] Although all SPS operators are sworn police officers, there are a number of unsworn support and training personnel within the organisation who play critical roles.
Then SRG Divers took part in the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand working with the Royal Thai Navy and international responders.
[21] Potential operators must have a minimum of two years of contemporary sworn policing experience before undertaking a series of psychological, psychometric and physical fitness testing.