Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many accredited financial investigators the National Crime Agency has employed in each of the last five years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The National Crime Agency (NCA) currently has 174* accredited financial investigators (FIs). Figures for previous years are not held. The number of FIs does not directly equate to the volume of financial investigative work undertaken by the NCA, as criminal investigators progress money laundering cases, with the support of the FI network where required.
*These figures may include FIs who are on a career break, have recently left the agency, or have moved into a non-FI role (either temporarily or permanently).
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what total value of (a) fines have been imposed and (b) assets confiscated as a result of action taken by the National Crime Agency in relation to money laundering and other economic crime in each of the last five years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The National Crime Agency do not issue or collect court fines.
For assets confiscated by the National Crime Agency see the Annual Asset Recovery Statistical Bulletin 2020/21 published in September, which contains data going back to 2016. This is available here: Asset recovery statistical bulletin: financial years ending 2016 to 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the (a) budget, (b) headcount, and (c) the number of accreditations issued to financial investigators for each year in the last five years by the National Crime Agency's Proceeds of Crime Centre.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
(a) budget
The total spending of the Proceeds of Crime Centre (POCC) over in each of the last five financial years is in the table below. This covers a range of costs, for example pay, overtime, travel, training delivery costs.
Financial year | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 (year to date[1]) |
£ | 982,365 | 962,650 | 874,568 | 937,167 | 501,138 |
(b) headcount
The headcount of the POCC now, and at the end of the preceding four financial years, and the year to date is in the table below.
| March 2018 | March 2019 | March 2020 | March 2021 | October 2021 |
Staff in post | 14 | 15 | 16 | 18 | 20 |
(c) number of accreditations
The number of new accreditations given to Financial Investigators (FIs) by the POCC is set out below. The POCC also provides accredited FIs with Continuous Professional Development assurance and advice. In addition the POCC does a variety of work beyond new accreditations for FIs, including accreditations to non-FIs, providing non-accredited training, and acting as expert advisers across Law Enforcement.
Financial year | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 (year to date[2]) |
Financial Investigators accredited | 201 | 241 | 151 | 119 | 140 |
Confiscators* accredited | 143 | 118 | 83 | 51 | 47 |
*Confiscator accreditation can be gained by experienced FIs in order to hold additional powers.
[1] As of the 26th October 2021
[2] As of 28th October 2021
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much and what proportion of the National Crime Agency's budget has been spent on tackling economic crime in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The National Crime Agency (NCA)’s overall budget is distributed across the agency according to need and operational priority. As serious and organised crime threats change, the agency retains the ability to flex its resources to react. It is not possible to provide a breakdown of budget allocated to tackling economic crime as there are a number of agency wide capabilities and functions that all commands have access to. We are, however, able to provide the total expenditure by the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) which provides a partial figure of expenditure for our overall response to tackling economic crime.
The NCA Annual Report and Accounts provide the following Gross Expenditure over the past three years:
2018/19 - Gross expenditure for the Prosperity Command - £22.0m (Note the NECC was formally launched on 31 October 2018, before which the NCA’s Prosperity Command fulfilled some of the same functions. In the 2019/20 Annual Report, an apportionment of £6.7m in 2018/19 was made for the NECC.)
2019/20 - Gross expenditure for the NECC - £30.0m
2020/21 – Gross expenditure for the NECC - £35.5m
An important element of tackling economic crime and illicit finance is by denying criminals the benefit of their crimes. This disrupts organised crime groups and illicit finance flows and on this we have achieved some significant successes. The NCA’s success in denying criminal assets over the same three years totals £646.5m, which could have derived from any serious and organised crime threat. This demonstrates one element of our impact across all illicit finance for which we have readily available data.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many full-time equivalent staff have been employed by the National Crime Agency to tackle economic crime in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
In terms of the operational response, the Agency has a wide range of capabilities and functions that operate across different threat areas including economic crime. We are unable to provide a figure for the number of full-time equivalent staff who have been employed by the National Crime Agency (NCA) to tackle economic crime for the past three years as many units contribute to the efforts in different and varying amounts.
However, we are able to report on the number of staff within the Economic Crime Command which includes the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) and the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU).
The following table contains the approximate number of full time equivalent (FTE) staff for the Economic Crime Command, UK Financial Intelligence Unit and NECC since 2018. This is therefore a partial figure that does not reflect, for example, officers in Intelligence and Investigations Commands who conduct work in this threat area.
| ECC (NECC and UKFIU) FTE (approximate) |
2019 FY end | 240 |
2020 FY end | 300 |
2021 FY end | 350 |
An important element of tackling economic crime and illicit finance is by denying criminals the benefit of their crimes. This disrupts organised crime groups and illicit finance flows and on this we have achieved some significant successes. The NCA’s success in denying criminal assets over the same three years totals £646.5m, which could have derived from any serious and organised crime threat. This demonstrates one element of our impact across all illicit finance for which we have readily available data.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate Sir Craig Mackey made of how much additional funding would be required to enable UK law enforcement to successfully tackle serious and organised crime.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
My department published the key findings of Sir Craig Mackey’s Review on 16 March 2021. The recent Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy set out the Government’s priorities for tackling serious and organised crime in response to Sir Craig’s Review, including strengthening the NCA and increasing regional and local policing capacity. We will assess future funding needed as part of the next spending review.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the reliability of information contained in the International Passenger Survey for the purpose of migration control; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The International Passenger Survey is undertaken by the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s independent statistical institute. The Office for National Statistics regularly reviews the quality and reliability of the International Passenger Survey (IPS), in line with the requirements of the UK Statistics Authority and the Government Statistics Service ‘Code of Practice for Official Statistics.