National Crime Agency

Not to be confused with National Crime Authority (Australia).

The National Crime Agency is a proposed national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom, serving as a replacement for the existing Serious Organised Crime Agency. The new agency will be launched by 2013 and also include the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and parts of the National Policing Improvement Agency.^[1] Some of the responsibilities of the UK Border Agency will also fall to the new Agency.^[1]

On 8 June 2011, Theresa May, the Home Secretary declared that the NCA will comprise a number of distinct operational commands: Organised Crime, Border Policing, Economic Crime and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre - and that it will house the National Cyber Crime Unit. She added that capabilities, expertise, assets and intelligence will be shared across the new agency; that each Command will operate as part of one single organisation; and that the NCA will be a powerful body of operational crime fighters, led by a senior Chief Constable and accountable to the Home Secretary. In her statement to the House of Commons, Theresa May stated that the new agency would have the authority to "undertake tasking and coordination, ensuring appropriate action is taken to put a stop to the activities of organised crime groups".^[2] The national cyber crime unit will also come under the authority of the National Crime Agency^[2]

In October 2011, it was announced that Keith Bristow, the current Chief Constable of Warwickshire Police, would head the organisation.^[3]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Police reform proposals outlined". BBC News Online. 26 July 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10768583. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "National Crime Agency details outlined by Theresa May". BBC News Online. 08 June 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13678653. 
3. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15241052

On 23 September 2011 the Home Affairs Select Committee called for The Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism commands unit role be handed over to the NCA when it becomes operational saying that the terrorist threat is a "national problem" and that there would be "advantages" in transferring responsibility.

External links

• "Policing in the 21st century: reconnecting police and the people" - Home Office consultation paper