NCA publishes Annual Plan 2019/20
Informed by its enhanced understanding of the evolving threat to the UK from Serious and Organised Crime (SOC), the National Crime Agency (NCA) last week published its Annual Plan for 2019/20, setting out its operational priorities for the year ahead and how it will lead a whole-system response to SOC.
To read the Annual Plan 2019-20 in full, click
here
.
Over the last year, working with partners we have made significant progress in the fight against serious and organised crime. Chief among these developments was the launch of the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), which has had an immediate impact in enhancing our response to economic crime, maximising the value of intelligence, prioritising threats, and tasking and coordinating resources to ensure the greatest possible impact.
The agency has harnessed the collective powers of law enforcement, government, the voluntary sector and industry to coordinate the response needed to protect UK communities from the escalating and rapidly evolving SOC threat. It says a sustained funding model for the system as a whole is essential if it is to keep pace with the fast changing nature of SOC, the scale and complexity of which were highlighted by the Government’s 2018 SOC Strategy.
With the Government’s investment in the NCA's capacity to tackle illicit finance for 2019/20, it says it has a Capability Strategy aimed at identifying important gaps to ensure it develops a whole system response to SOC and that it knows from the work undertaken to date that significant further investment will be required to enable it deliver on the Government and NCA's combined ambition. The 2019 Spending Review provides the NCA and its partners with the means to build on the Government’s investment in the SOC system to enhance its ability to tackle SOC in all its forms.
The NCA has outlined an ambitious and transformative change programme, aiming to ensure it has 'the right people, resources, equipment and skills to focus on tackling the most sophisticated offenders who cause the highest harm'.
The NCA's operational priorities 2019/20 are:
To enhance the intelligence picture of existing and emerging serious and organised crime threats to the UK, using the intelligence to drive, lead and support the UK’s response to serious and organised crime.
To operate proactively at the high end of high risk, undertaking significant investigations resulting in offenders being brought to justice through prosecution or, if that is not possible, disrupted through other means.
To lead, task, coordinate and support operational activity proactively sharing intelligence, assets and capabilities with partners at local, regional, national and international levels.
To develop and deliver specialist serious and organised crime capabilities and services where this is best done nationally; enabling their availability where and when needed for the benefit of all UK law enforcement.
To enhance Agency capability and credibility by ensuring that it equips its officers with the right skills, facilities and technology to lead the fight to cut serious and organised crime; and that the NCA retains the trust and confidence of the public.
NCA Director General Lynne Owens said: “Our mission to lead the UK’s fight to cut serious and organised crime is critical to our national security. We continue to deliver some outstanding operational results and enable our partners to do likewise, ensuring the public are protected.
“The launch of the NECC has been an exciting step for us this year. Another notable success has been the Capability Strategy, enhancing our ability to tackle serious and organised crime in all its forms, by providing the right response to the right partner at the right time.
“It is reassuring that the funding from Government as a result of the 2019 Spending Review enables us to invest in our capacity and capability to deliver with our partners and stakeholders.
“We are a growing organisation and we will continue to invest in our people. By continuing to drive change internally, we will better position the Agency to lead the SOC system and to ensure that we have the right resources, equipment and skills to maintain our focus on tackling the most sophisticated offenders with the ability to cause the most harm.
“I am proud to lead an agency that values its people as its strongest asset. We will continue to invest in our people to enable them to deliver to the highest standards to protect the public.”
Home Secretary Sajid Javid said: “Our new SOC strategy published in November 2018 set out how we mobilise the full force of the state and align our collective efforts to target and disrupt serious and organised crime. The NCA is at the heart of delivering this and will increasingly focus its effort on higher priority and more complex threats, targeting and coordinating disruptive activity so that we have the greatest impact on the most serious criminals and groups impacting on the UK.”