South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon has said that the Agency set up to recover the proceeds of crime might as well have been run by Inspector Clouseau, as a new report finds that the Agency has failed on almost every front.
Mr Bacon was speaking as the Commons public accounts committee published its report into the Assets Recovery Agency. Set up without a business case in 2003, the Assets Recovery Agency was meant to be self-financing by 2005–06.
However, by December 2006 the Agency had only recovered £23 million, despite costing £65 million to run. The Agency has no powers to launch investigations itself and is reliant on cases being referred to it. However, only 129 out of 696 possible referral partners sent cases to the Agency. The Agency has also suffered from high staff turnover and lost half of its legal team within one year.
A comprehensive database of the Agency’s cases was not kept, and the
Agency did not keep track of the accreditation of its trained
Financial Investigators. As a result, only 1,400 of the 4,500
investigators trained by the Agency were still active by summer
2006. The Agency is due to be axed in 2008 and its powers shared
between the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and the National
Policing Improvement Agency.
Mr Bacon said: “The Assets Recovery Agency is little short of a
laughing stock. It has made so many basic errors it might as well
have been run by Inspector Clouseau. It is amazing that any assets
were recovered at all”.
“We simply cannot afford the Agency’s feeble approach to dealing
with hardened criminals. I hope that the Serious and Organised
Crime Agency and the National Policing Improvement Agency make
better use of these powers and ensure that crime does not pay”.
12 October 2007
PAC REPORT:The
Assets Recovery Agency PARLIAMENT:Crime Agency is ‘a total shambles’ - MP
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