The Home Office



Purpose

• To work with individuals and communities to build a safe, just and tolerant society enhancing opportunities for all and in which rights and responsibilities go hand in hand, and the protection and security of the public are maintained and enhanced.
• To support and mobilise communities so that, through active citizenship, they are able to shape policy and improvement for their locality, overcome nuisance, anti-social behaviour, maintain and enhance social cohesion and enjoy their homes and public spaces peacefully.
• To deliver the Department’s policies and responsibilities fairly, effectively and efficiently through the most up to date project and day to day management, the best use of resources and the development of partnership working.

Aims

• To reduce crime and the fear of crime, tackle youth crime and violent, sexual and drug-related crime, anti-social behaviour and disorder, increasing safety in the home and public spaces.
• To reduce organised and international crime, including trafficking in drugs, people and weapons, and to combat terrorism and other threats to national security, in co-operation with EU partners and the wider international community.
• To ensure the effective delivery of justice, avoiding unnecessary delay, through efficient investigation, detection, prosecution and court procedures. To minimise the threat to and intimidation of witnesses and to engage with and support victims.
• To deliver effective custodial and community sentences to reduce reoffending and protect the public, through the prison and probation services, in partnership with the Youth Justice Board.
• To reduce the availability and abuse of dangerous drugs, building a coherent, co-ordinated drugs strategy, covering education and prevention, supply and misuse.
• To focus on effective intelligence and detection, preventative measures at local level, community regeneration, and – with other relevant departments and agencies – the provision of necessary treatment and rehabilitation services.
• To reduce the incidence of drugs in prisons and provide appropriate follow-up and remedial services.
• To regulate entry to and settlement in the United Kingdom effectively in the interests of sustainable growth and social inclusion. To provide an efficient and effective work permit system to meet economic and skills requirements, and fair, fast and effective programmes for dealing with visitors, citizenship and long term immigration applications and those seeking refuge and asylum. To facilitate travel by UK citizens.
• To support strong and active communities in which people of all races and backgrounds are valued and participate on equal terms by developing social policy to build a fair, prosperous and cohesive society in which everyone has a stake. To work with other departments and local government agencies and community groups to regenerate neighbourhoods, to support families; to develop the potential of every individual; to build the confidence and capacity of the whole community to be part of the solution; and to promote good race and community relations, combating prejudice and xenophobia. To promote equal opportunities both within the Home Office and more widely and to ensure that active citizenship contributes to the enhancement of democracy and the development of civil society.
  

For more information on the Home Office, please click here.

The new Squad came about directly because of a July 1995 report by the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee on the threat of organised crime and its impact on the United Kingdom, which stated, inter alia:

“If the response to serious and organised crime is to be sharpened and made more effective, the present structure of separate Regional Crime Squads ... needs to be replaced by a more nationally co-ordinated structure.”

The Government and Parliament, together with the police service represented by the Association of Chief Police Officers, supported this proposal and the Police Act 1997 gave effect to the new Squad. But first a quick look at the way Regional Crime Squads had developed.

Mission Statement 
The mission of the National Crime Squad is:

To combat national and international serious and organised crime
 
Strategic Aims 
Our mission will be supported by the following strategic aims:

To bring to justice or disrupt those responsible for serious and organised crime.

To work in partnership with and provide support to police forces and otherlaw enforcement agencies in the prevention and detection of serious and organised crime.

To drive forward a culture of diversity which values our staff and the communities we serve.
 
For more information on the National Crime Squad, please visit our website: http://www.nationalcrimesquad.police.uk

Strategic overviews of organised crime
NCIS's top-level overview is contained in the annual UK Threat Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime. This outlines the current dynamic of organised crime and forecasts trends and is the basis on which national priorities for enforcement and prevention are set. NCIS then provides regional threat assessments of crime and criminality, used by our law enforcement partners in regional tasking and coordination. For identified strategic priorities, NCIS produces problem profiles - detailed analyses of particular criminal activities. These complement NCIS's timely and accurate baseline assessments of organised criminal activity in each specialist area, such as drugs or immigration crime, which focus tactical activity and improve the quality of strategic assessments.

Operational intelligence on the 'top few' criminals
NCIS and its partners aim to ensure that no criminal organisation is beyond reach. Investigation into the highest level of criminality often requires elaborate intelligence collection to which resources must be committed long-term. NCIS is equipped to service the needs of law enforcement at this level of criminality and maintains Level 3 target profiles and intelligence collection plans against the most serious criminals and their organisations.

Specialist services and intelligence coordination
NCIS coordinates much of the UK's higher level criminal intelligence activity. It provides specialist services for investigators such as target flagging and interception of criminals' communications, and liaison with foreign law enforcement. NCIS gives expert advice and intelligence on a range of criminal activity, including economic crime, heroin, cocaine, synthetic drugs, illegal immigration, West African organised crime, counterfeits, football hooliganism, kidnap and extortion., and wildlife crime. NCIS maintains the national intelligence collection on serious and organised criminals.

Knowledge products
NCIS has sought to develop its reputation as the 'custodian of the knowledge' about intelligence best practice.

It has produced the National Intelligence Model, a business framework that helps senior law enforcement managers to use accurate intelligence to deploy resources more efficiently. It provides the picture that drives effective strategy about crime and criminals.

The National Intelligence Model has been adopted by the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Scotland), HM Immigration Service and the National Crime Squad. It has excited interest among other agencies and in foreign police forces.

For more information about NCIS, please visit our website: http://www.ncis.co.uk

The Assets Recovery Agency



The Assets Recovery Agency is a Non-Ministerial Department. The Director, Jane Earl, reports to the Home Secretary but is operationally independent. The Agency has had access to the unique powers in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 since 24 February 2003.

The Agency’s main offices are in London; we also have an office in Northern Ireland and the Director consults with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on aspects of ARA’s annual plan concerning Northern Ireland.

The setting up of the Assets Recovery Agency was a key aspect of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA), which was the result of the Government’s aim to take the profit out of crime and dismantle and disrupt the organised crime empires by removing the money that is their motivation and their major source of income. It brings together previous legislation, such as the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 and Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, with the changes recommended in a comprehensive report of a study conducted by the Performance and Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office in 2000.

POCA strengthened the legislation around cash seizures, money laundering, investigation powers and restraint and confiscation procedures.

The Agency has three strategic aims:

• To disrupt organised criminal enterprises through the recovery of criminal assets, thereby alleviating the effects of crime on communities.
• To promote the use of financial investigation as an integral part of criminal investigation, within and outside the Agency, domestically and internationally, through training and continuing professional development.
• To operate the Agency in accordance with its vision and values.

National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre (NISCC)



A fundamental role for any government is to ensure the continuity of society in times of crisis. This often involves providing extra protection to essential services and systems to make them more resistant to disruption and better able to recover quickly.

In the UK, these essential services and systems are known as the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). The role of NISCC (pronounced "nicey") is to minimise the risk to the CNI from electronic attack; other parts of government work to protect the CNI from physical attack or natural disasters.

NISCC was set up in 1999 and is an inter-departmental centre drawing on contributions from across government. Defence, Central Government Policy, Trade, the Intelligence Agencies and Law Enforcement all contribute expertise and effort.

In the UK the majority of the CNI is run by the private sector and NISCC works closely with a wide range of companies many of which have strong international links or are foreign-owned. CNI issues transcend geographical borders and problems can strike anywhere in the world. NISCC therefore operates in a global context.

NISCC has no regulatory, legislative or law enforcement role; it seeks to achieve its aim through four broad work streams:

Threat Assessment. Using a wide range of resources to investigate, assess and disrupt threats.
Outreach. Promoting protection and assurance by encouraging information sharing, offering advice and fostering best practice.
Response. Warning of new threats; advising on mitigation; managing disclosure of vulnerabilities; helping the CNI investigate and recover from attack.
Research and Development. Devising the most advanced techniques and methods to support efforts across all work streams.
The combined cost of the NISCC programme is estimated to be £10M for the 2005/06 financial year and will involve approximately 85 personnel.

The NISCC web-site is a cornerstone of the NISCC outreach policy; from here you can access the very latest IT security bulletins in the form of Alerts and Briefings as well as a broader range of advice and information.