The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. It operated within the United Kingdom and collaborated (through its network of international offices) with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The Agency was formed following a merger of the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service (elements of which were incorporated into AVCIS), the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), the investigative and intelligence sections of HM Revenue & Customs on serious drug trafficking, and the Immigration Service's responsibilities for organised immigration crime. The Assets Recovery Agency became part of SOCA in 2008, while the Serious Fraud Office remained a separate agency.
SOCA Officers could be designated the powers of a constable, customs officer or immigration officer and/or any combination of these three sets of powers. The Director General of SOCA (or his designate) was responsible for determining which powers were given to members of staff which could be altered depending on the nature of the investigation. Those police powers requiring a constable to be in uniform could not be exercised by SOCA Officers as the agency was non-uniformed.
SOCA operated with greater powers in England and Wales than in Scotland and Northern Ireland and as such worked with the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and the Organised Crime Task Force (Northern Ireland), which shared some of its functions in their respective jurisdictions.
In June 2011, the coalition government announced that SOCA's operations would be merged into a larger National Crime Agency to launch in 2013. The new agency, created through the Crime and Courts Act 2013, commenced operations on 7 October 2013.
The creation of the agency was announced on 9 February 2004 as one of the elements of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which also restricts protests and demonstrations in central London, and alters powers of arrest and the use of search warrants. According to Home Office figures organised crime costs the UK around £20 billion each year, with some estimates putting the figure as high as £40 billion.
SOCA had a national remit and the role of the agency was to support individual police forces in the investigation of crime and conduct independent investigations with regard to serious organised crime. SOCA was an agency which had the role of "reducing harm", not specifically the arrest and conviction of offenders.
Elements of the media attempted to draw parallels between the organisation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States: indeed, parts of the press labelled SOCA the "British FBI."
SOCA was subject to similar internal and external governance mechanisms as the police service. The SOCA Professional Standards Department was responsible for receiving, investigating and monitoring the progress of public complaints about the misconduct of SOCA officers. Serious complaints regarding SOCA were dealt with by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) now the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC). The IPCC would decide the appropriate method of investigation. In general terms, the IPCC would handle complaints against SOCA officers in the same manner as complaints against police officers or officers of HMRC. The Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland (PONI) dealt with complaints in Northern Ireland. In Scotland, this was the responsibility of the Lord Advocate. There was also a bespoke inspection regime for SOCA, provided through Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).
The agency was an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by, but operationally independent from, the Home Office. It was funded by the UK's central government, with a provisional budget for 2006/7 of £457 million, of which £416 million funded ongoing resources and £41 million was capital investment. At formation it was intended to have around 4,200 employees, of which 400 were support staff. Of the remaining workforce, half would be criminal investigators and the other half would focus on analysis and intelligence. SOCA co-operated closely with the police, intelligence agencies, HM Revenue & Customs, foreign police forces and others.
SOCA was led by a board comprising non-executive and executive members. The founding non-executive chairman, responsible for the overall approach of the Agency, was Sir Stephen Lander, former Director General of the Security Service (MI5). Lander was succeeded by Sir Ian Andrews, a former MOD Civil Servant. The other original non-executive directors of the board were Stephen Barrett, Elizabeth France, Ken Jarrold, Janet Paraskeva and General Sir Roger Wheeler. Prior to closure, the non-executive directors were Peter Clarke, Sue Garrard, Francis Plowden and Dr Martyn Thomas. The original executive directors of the board were David Bolt, Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans and Trevor Pearce, and today they are Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans, Trevor Pearce and Brad Jones. The agency's headquarters were in Victoria, not far from New Scotland Yard. There was also an office in Vauxhall, South London, not far from the Palace of Westminster and the SIS Building.
The founding Director General was Bill Hughes, formerly of the National Crime Squad. Hughes retired in 2010 and was succeeded by Trevor Pearce, who until then was Executive Director of SOCA's Enforcement Directorate.
The board directed that around 40% of its effort should be devoted to combating drug trafficking, 25% to tackling organised immigration crime, around 10% to fraud, 15% on other organised crime and the remaining 10% on supporting other law enforcement agencies.
The organisation was split into three major directorates:
Strategy and Prevention - Responsible for driving SOCA strategy and reflecting government priorities. Bringing together those functions focussed on preventative activity with partners such as disruption of criminal activities and denial of assets.
Operational Delivery - Responsible for identifying how and where the desired impact and response can be achieved, planning and executing operations and the subsequent criminal justice and other disruptive interventions.
Capability and Service Delivery - Supporting activities
The Agency had to deal with the effects of significant budget cuts that have affected both its strategy for dealing with organised crime and its ability to retain experienced police officers.