Urgent Reforms Needed: NCA Faces Severe Operational Challenges

A new report by Spotlight on Corruption reveals the critical state of the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA). Titled “Is Britain’s FBI on its knees? How to make the National Crime Agency a genuinely elite crime fighting force,” the report highlights serious operational challenges within the agency.

Without significant reforms and investment, the NCA’s ability to safeguard society from threats such as corruption, money laundering, and organized crime could be severely compromised. The study found that staff morale is at a dangerously low level, with the agency losing officers due to pay inequities and a lack of career progression.

Since 2015, NCA spending on temporary staff and consultants has surged by 369%, and by 58% in the past three years alone. Currently, 9% of positions remain unfilled due to recruitment difficulties, more than double the average vacancy rate in the public sector.

The real wages of NCA officers have decreased by 16.3% since its inception in 2013. Despite a recent 7% pay raise, employees still earn 13.9% less in real terms compared to a decade ago.

The NCA is facing a significant “brain drain”: a quarter of senior managers and a third of legal professionals leave annually. More than half of the workforce (59%) is stuck at the lower rungs of the career ladder, with no prospects for pay raises or promotions. Of particular concern is the looming threat of equal pay claims, which could cost the agency around £200 million due to existing pay disparities.

An independent review body has urged reforms to the NCA’s organizational structure and called for an urgent overhaul of its pay system. As a civil service division under the Home Office, the NCA is especially vulnerable to hiring freezes and budget cuts, unlike police forces, despite its critical role in protecting the public.

Spotlight on Corruption has called on the UK government to:

• Conduct an urgent review of the NCA’s organizational status to shield it from hiring freezes and budget cuts.
• Inject new funding into the NCA to implement swift and far-reaching pay reforms.
• Ensure the necessary investments are made to upgrade the agency’s technological capabilities.

Dr. Susan Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption and co-author of the report, stressed, “If the government wants the NCA to be at the forefront of tackling the range of threats and challenges the UK faces, from organised immigration gangs to hostile and corrupt states, it needs to put its money where its mouth is. The NCA for too long has been forced to operate at sub-par because of lack of sufficient investment. It desperately needs a new injection of cash to fund major pay reform and cutting-edge technology. This new investment can easily be offset against the long term value for the taxpayer that it will bring, including by reducing the massive sums the agency now spends on temporary labour and consultants to fill its vacancies.”

This report is the third in Spotlight’s series examining the current state of law enforcement in the field of economic crime in the UK. The organization plans to release at least one more report assessing the reinvestment of proceeds from fines and asset seizures in the fight against economic crime.