London needs joint intelligence unit to tackle organised crime, say inspectors

The London region does not have a regional organised crime unit (ROCU). Instead, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), City of London Police (CoLP) and British Transport Police (BTP) maintain their own set of specialist capabilities to tackle organised crime.

“This means that the forces don’t share all the specialist regional policing capabilities that ROCUs have to tackle organised crime,” said HMICFRS.

The only department that exists in the London region that is fully collaborated, in line with ROCUs across England and Wales, is the regional organised crime threat assessment (ROCTA) unit.

The London ROCTA unit consists of officers and staff from the MPS, BTP and the CoLP.

“During our inspection we found that personnel only worked on serious and organised crime threats relevant to their own force,” said the inspectorate. “The working practices and culture around collaboration in the ROCTA unit could be improved.

“To be effective, the ROCTA unit should have access to all available intelligence held by law enforcement agencies and partners throughout England and Wales.”

Across England and Wales, each regional organised crime unit has a regional SIU that receives and manages intelligence from all sources, providing the most complete SOC intelligence picture.

“However, the MPS, BTP and the CoLP have three separate SIUs. During our inspection SIU staff told us that information sharing between the MPS, BTP and the CoLP isn’t always as good as it should be. This is in part due to them working in different locations,” said inspectors

“The creation of a regional SIU that consistently feeds information into the ROCTA unit would improve intelligence sharing between the forces and ensure serious and organised crime threat assessments are comprehensive.”

HMICFRS said ROCTA unit and the SIU should work together to share information and inform organised crime assessments.

HMICFRS acknowledged that retaining specialist staff across the region was “challenging”.

“It is difficult for the forces in the London region to retain specialist staff such as financial investigators and analysts,” it said.

“Employers in the private sector frequently offer better terms and conditions than policing can.

“While this situation isn’t unique to the London region, London forces do appear to suffer more acutely, especially the MPS.”

The threat from organised crime confronting the MPS is “substantial,” said HMICFRS.

“As of July 4, 2022, it had identified 266 serious and organised crime threats, the highest for any force in the country and seven per cent of the total for England and Wales.”

However, inspectors found the force has “considerable resources” to tackle organised crime.

In particular, it has a team with specific responsibility for monitoring individuals subject to serious crime prevention orders.

Despite this, inspectors found there were areas for improvement in the way the force manages, records and assesses threats from organised crime.

The organised crime challenges faced by BTP and the CoLP are different from those dealt with by the MPS, said HMICFRS. They both have small residential communities and temporary and diverse populations resulting from many daily visitors and service users.

While BTP has an established process to identify its priorities, including serious and organised crime, inspectors found it needs to improve the management of intelligence gathered from sensitive sources to ensure safeguards are in place, and review its covert policing capability to ensure it is getting “good value for money”.

Inspectors found CoLP requires improvement in tackling serious and organised crime, with the force accepting that “gaps remain in its understanding of the threat from crimes other than economic crime and fraud”.

This includes drug markets and the threat from modern slavery and human trafficking.