Is Britain’s FBI on its knees? How to make the National Crime Agency a genuinely elite crime fighting force

The UK’s National Crime Agency – widely dubbed Britain’s FBI – is at a crossroads. If it is to be at the forefront of the UK’s fight against serious and organised crime, including corruption, money laundering and fraud, it needs investment.

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.”

What’s the problem?

Morale at the NCA is close to rock bottom. The agency is struggling to recruit and keep staff. Between 2021/22 and 2022/23 the NCA lost more staff than it recruited. Despite recruiting over 500 new officers in 2022/23 its workforce shrank from 5,663 to 5,620.

Last year was the first time in the last three years in which the NCA has managed to expand its workforce, increasing the number of officers by 169 to 5,789.

However, who the NCA is able to recruit matters. Currently the agency faces a braindrain, losing a quarter of senior managers and lawyers and nearly a fifth of its cyber capacity annually.

Spending on temporary labour and consultants by the NCA has increased by a massive 369% since 2015/16 from £19.99 million to £93.7 million in 2023/24 and now represents over 10% of its budget.

At the same time, the NCA’s pay structures are unfair and divisive, leaving the majority of staff trapped, with little chance of progression. These pay structures are exposing the agency to equal pay legal risks of £200 million.

Crunch time

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.

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.

With both the NCA’s independent pay review body, the National Crime Agency Remuneration Review Body, and the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy calling for a fundamental reassessment of the agency’s funding model and organisational form, now is the time for ministers to act.

The question for the new government is not whether it can afford to invest in pay reform at the NCA, but whether it can afford not to if it really wants the NCA to protect the public from the threats that Britain faces.