Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much of the £10 million allocated to the National Crime Agency to address child sexual exploitation is applied to investigations of historic child sexual abuse.

Although NCA officers can be designated with the Powers of a Constable (and other powers), NCA officers are not police officers, nor were the SOCA officers that formed the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. When the NCA was launched on 7 October 2013, 99 posts were transferred into the NCA from the SOCA-affiliated Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. The NCA CEOP Command currently has 129 core posts.

At the WePROTECT Children Online Global Summit in December 2014, the Prime Minister announced an additional £10m would be provided in 2015/16 to create further specialist teams in the National Crime Agency to focus on the worst online child sexual exploitation and abuse offenders. This funding is enabling the National Crime Agency to target more offenders, strengthen victim identification and create additional intelligence and child protection advisor capabilities. This has included 174 additional posts (an increase on the 168 new posts envisaged when the NCA Annual Report and accounts were published last year). These 174 posts, are in addition to the NCA’s core posts and are all dedicated to tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse, within the CEOP Command and supporting functions.

Specific funding for NCA investigations into non-recent child sexual abuse is provided through alternative arrangements. All of the National Crime Agency commands contribute to tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse. NCA commands work collaboratively and are supported by specialist capabilities drawn from across the Agency.