Friday Focus: SOCA Launch

It is not everyday that the Prime Minister turns to you and asks your opinion. Along with the Chief Executives of EATA (European Association for the Treatment of Addiction), Adfam and the National Treatment Agency, this week I attended the Downing Street launch of the new Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

The new agency merges the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad with the investigative work of HM Revenue and Customs on drug trafficking, and officers from the Immigration Service. With over 4,000 staff and an annual budget of £400 million, SOCA’s overarching purpose is to “reduce the harm caused to people and communities in the UK by serious organised crime”. It will “build knowledge and understanding of serious organised crime, the harm it causes and the effectiveness of different responses. “

The Home Secretary has made Class A drugs the Agency’s number one priority during its first year and 40 per cent of its resources will be applied to tackling drugs.

The scale of the challenge facing SOCA was emphasised in a confidential Downing Street Policy Unit report (written in 2003) recently leaked to the Guardian: “Supply interventions have had little impact in reducing harm…the scale of disruption required to reduce [drug] supply has never been achieved anywhere.”

It is a truism that drug trafficking is extremely profitable and the traffickers innovative and increasingly sophisticated in responding to enforcement measures. The illegal drugs market in the UK is thought to be worth £7 billion a year. The heroin and cocaine trafficked into the UK could, according to the Policy Unit report, fit into 5 standard sized shipping containers yet is worth up to £4 billion annually.

The launch of SOCA and it’s emphasis on reducing “harm”, rather than an explicit aim of reducing drug supply and availability suggests, a shift in strategy and tactics which perhaps echo the pessimistic conclusions in the Policy Unit report. There is unlikely to be any let-up in efforts to seize drugs, but there will be a greater focus on intelligence gathering with the aim of taking out (figuratively) the “Mr Biggs” and their financial assets, and countering money laundering. The absence of specific targets (such as quantity of drugs seized or assets recovered) is deliberate.

Sir Stephen Lander, Chair of the Board of SOCA and former head of MI5, said at the launch “We have to be more ambitious for success than previous agencies.” Indeed.

DrugScope and other drug organisations attending the Downing Street seminar welcomed the launch but emphasised the need to link and relate the Agency’s work to the impact at individual and community level. Tackling drug related harm is multi-stranded, and however effective or otherwise the efforts to tackle serious organised crime and drug supply, there needs to be further and sustained investment in drug prevention, education and treatment.

Martin Barnes
Chief Executive

Related Publications

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