Briefing: Making the most of police reform to tackle money laundering, corruption and fraud

The King’s Speech has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to delivering the most ambitious reforms to policing in decades, following its recent white paper. The changes will have direct implications for how the UK can step up its fight against tackling dirty
money, fraud and economic crime more broadly.

Chief among these will be the merging of the National Crime Agency (NCA) into a new National Police Service (NPS), and the potential loss of specialist forces such as the City of London Police (COLP).

The reforms could provide some clear potential benefits for the fight against dirty money and economic crime. But there are real risks that without careful planning and resourcing, reforms could undermine economic crime enforcement.

To ensure this reform leads to improved economic crime enforcement, the government must:

Ensure policing remains fully independent and protected from political interference, by introducing a statutory definition of ‘operational independence’ and having an independent oversight mechanism.
Ensure that there is a clear plan to protect and enhance economic crime enforcement under the police reform programme and protect existing specialist economic crime expertise.
Ensure that there are adequate resources devoted to police reform to drastically improve recruitment and retention of specialist expertise in economic crime and across the board.