Geoff Ogden: New crime agency will not be a ‘British FBI’

Replacing the Serious and Organised Crime Agency established by the Labour government only eight years ago, it will be tasked with tackling major organised crime such as drug trafficking and complex international fraud.

The NCA’s responsibilities will also include border policing, as well as overseeing the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, a national cyber crime unit, an economic crime unit and the National Missing Persons Bureau. To understand the background of the new agency we should consider the investigation of serious and organised crime over the last 50 years. I recognise familiar themes.

The Police Act 1964 forced early police force mergers but also provided the basis for the establishment of regional crime squads. By 1965, nine had been formed throughout the United Kingdom.

I served as a detective sergeant on a North East Regional Crime Squad in the early 1970s and later as a detective chief inspector in another region during the 1980s. Their main function was to identify and arrest criminals responsible for serious offences which transcended force and regional boundaries.

They were generally successful and, although reduced from nine to six, lasted for 33 years before being replaced by the National Crime Squad. From the early days of targeting armed robbers and bogus official distraction burglars, regional crime squads adapted to tackle drug cartels, kidnap situations, extortion and new trends in organised crime.

The National Crime Squad, which replaced them in 1998, reported directly to the Home Office and had national and international jurisdiction. It dealt primarily with organised crime, major drug trafficking, murder-to-hire conspiracies, illegal arms dealing, human trafficking, high-tech crime, counterfeiting and laundering, extortion and kidnap.

In April 2006, the National Crime Squad was replaced by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). The new agency merged with the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the investigative and intelligence sections of HM Revenue and Customs on serious drug trafficking, the Immigration Service in terms of responsibilities for organised immigration crime and the Asset Recovery Agency.

By concentrating on high end offenders, SOCA had quite impressive results but it left a huge void in which regional criminal gangs prospered.

Local police forces simply did not have the structure or resources to tackle them. In some regions, including here in Yorkshire over recent years, a solution has been attempted through closer co-operation between local police forces. Although commendable, this is threatened because of the massive cuts the police service is facing and the danger of even more parochialism with the election of 43 Police and Crime Commissioners who have their own Police and Crime Plans.

An approach that I would have supported would have been the merger of the police forces in England and Wales into 12 larger regional units. They would have been better funded and organised to deal with the complexities of national and regional organised crime. This would not have been at the expense of local neighbourhood and district teams and commands.The opportunity to merge has now been missed.

While there are reservations about the National Crime Agency, it can succeed if it has regard for the pressures that regional forces, their commanders, officers and staff are under.

The NCA’s strength is that it has high calibre operational commanders with many experienced officers and agents moving across to it. But to succeed it will need to establish itself in the regions, not mirroring the former regional crime squads but ensuring close working with local forces through intelligence-led policing. This starts with local officers in the neighbourhood communities they serve.

Early tensions and apprehensions must be quickly overcome. The new agency needs regional police forces to support it in tackling a series of offences which may not feature in the Police and Crime Commissioner’s plan. Fortunately, chief constables retain operational responsibility for policing.

Through effective communication and combined operations to tackle organised crime in whatever field, the NCA can be successful.

A plea, however, to the Government and media. Do not continue to suggest that the National Crime Agency is the British FBI. While the Government is obsessed with the structure and governance of policing in America, the USA has more gangs and firearms per head of population than the UK will ever have. We have nothing to learn from them.

*Geoff Ogden is a former head of CID at Humberside Police