Crime agency tasked with tackling small boats crisis ‘on its knees’

The crime agency charged with tackling people-smuggling gangs is “on its knees”, a report has warned.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is losing more officers than it recruits as it suffers a brain drain with a quarter of senior managers leaving annually, according to the report.

Nine per cent of NCA roles are unfilled, more than double the average of 3.9 per cent for the public sector, while spending on temporary staff and consultants has nearly quadrupled since 2015-16, the report, called Is Britain’s FBI on its knees?, found.

The agency’s delivery in “mission-critical areas”, from tackling traffickers and hostile states to thwarting child abusers, is being “hobbled” by a high level of critical vacancies and a lack of investment.

The report by Spotlight on Corruption, a UK-based anti-corruption charity – based on official reports and submissions by the NCA – said the root cause was pay stagnation, with officers’ salaries cut by 16.3 per cent in real terms since 2013-14. Failure to address this would be “potentially catastrophic”, it warned.

“A critical moment has now arrived. If the NCA is to deliver on its mission to protect the UK from hostile threats, fraud and corruption, and serious organised crime more generally, major reform, particularly to pay and conditions, is needed,” said the report.

“While the NCA’s pay issues are not unique within the public sector, for an agency tasked with protecting the public from these threats the implications of not addressing the NCA’s pay issues are potentially catastrophic.”

The NCA, which has more than 5,600 staff, is central to Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to tackle the small boats crisis. A new Border Security Command is being set up to bring together the NCA, spy agencies and Border Force to crack down on the people smuggling gangs with new anti-terror style powers.

The NCA has more than 70 live investigations into the most harmful and prolific people smuggling gangs targeting the UK. However, Spotlight on Corruption’s report, released on Monday, warned that its ability to tackle gangs and other serious organised criminals was seriously hampered.

As the lead agency responding to cyber crime, the NCA needs advanced technology but instead its IT systems are “creaking” and it has insufficient capabilities to tackle issues such as ransomware attacks.

In two of the past three financial years, the agency lost more staff than it recruited. The workforce shrank in 2022-23, even though it recruited more than 500 new officers.

Lynne Owens, the former head of the NCA and now deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, warned four years ago that the Government needed to double the amount spent on fighting organised crime, including raising NCA’s budget from £424 million to nearly £1.1 billion.

However, the report said: “Despite its best efforts, the agency risks operating continually at suboptimal levels due to staffing shortages, chronic retention and recruitment problems, and low staff morale.

“The NCA’s problems have been persistently exacerbated by the unwillingness of successive governments to invest in the agency sufficiently to ensure it can function as the elite law enforcement agency with a lead role for reducing crime and protecting the UK against serious and organised crime.”

Dame Diana Johnson, the crime and policing minister, said the NCA was getting an extra 100 investigators to tackle the people-smugglers and that money was being switched from the scrapped Rwanda policy to provide additional resources.

“We are in the middle of a spending review. We want to make sure that our agencies have the resources they need,” she said.

A spokesman for the NCA said it was “world-leading in many areas, and has achieved significant and continued success over its decade in operation”, adding: “Last year alone, our officers made more than 4,700 disruptions – our most ever, and more than a dozen every single day.

“We are committed to working with the Government to ensure that the agency has the right structure and operating model, and, crucially, is able to attract, retain and support a talented workforce.

“We know that it is imperative that we deliver value for money while achieving our mission of protecting the public from serious and organised crime, now and as the threat evolves.”