Tag: Home Office

The press release issued by the Home Office on 13 April 2023.

Minister for Crime and Policing, Chris Philp, gave a speech on measures being taken to reduce unnecessary red tape and free up police time.

Good morning everyone.

Thank you for attending today. It’s a great pleasure to see everyone here. Let me start by saying a huge thank you to everyone in policing, those here with us today and frontline officers up and down the country for the work they do on the daily basis to keep us and our families safe.

We rely on the police to protect us, support us, to enforce our laws and help secure justice when those laws are broken.

Officers place themselves in the way of danger to discharge their duties. The work they do is extremely important. Without it the foundation of our society would crumble. We owe thanks to the men and women up and down the country devoted to their mission of fighting crime and keeping their communities safe.

And speaking of numbers, we’re going to have an announcement I think in a couple of weeks on the 26th of April, getting the results of the Police Uplift Programme – the plan to hire an extra 20,000 officers. While we don’t have the final figures yet, I am fairly confident when those figures are announced, we’ll have more police officers in England and Wales than we have at any time in our country’s history.

And that is something only we can be enormously proud of. All of us that have worked on that mission together, I think can be enormously proud of as well, so keep 26th April marked in your diaries. That will be a huge announcement for policing and the law enforcement community. I know the Prime Minister and Home Secretary will be doing lots of work around the announcement but keep an eye out because it’ll be fantastic culmination of what’s been an incredible programme between the Home Office and policing.

Now policing in a job like no other. Difficult, often dangerous, always pressurised. The work matters.

One minute officers could be racing to the scene of an emergency, the next visiting a victim of burglary. One of the great privileges of my role as policing minister is seeing first-hand the incredible work they do. As Gavin [Chief Constable Gavin Stephens] said in his opening comments, fantastic officers across the country go above and beyond the call of duty. Who run towards danger when others run away, who give everything to help others.

My respect and admiration for these officers is unlimited.

I also want to see those same officers use their time on the things they are good at and trained for, and indeed the things they want to do. Protecting the public, supporting victims and preventing crime.

First of all, as Policing Minister I want to make sure we clear away any obstacles that get in the way of police officers focusing on the things that matter to them and to our communities, which means cutting down on red tape which so often gets in the way of real police work.

Whatever their values, police officers are driven by a desire to protect the public and catch criminals. But they can’t do that if they are spending hours putting excessive information into computers. We have processes to ensure proper records are kept. But those can’t go too far, and I’ll say a little more about our plans in a moment.

Secondly, I’m also clear the police should not be a stopgap for other agencies. Police officers are of course often first responders, problem solvers and investigators, but they are not for example, mental health specialists. In my view the police should not be expected to fill in for other emergency services where there is no risk to life or safety and where no criminal offence has been committed.

I want to talk about the plans we have to reform the way mental health cases are handled to ensure policing spend time protecting the public, not on work better done by other agencies.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alan Pughsley, former Chief Constable of Kent, who is leading piece of work on police productivity. The counting rules I will talk about, the mental health work is part of this, but there is more to come.

I’d like to thank Alan for this work to ensure the police will spend as much of their time as possible fighting crime and catching criminals affecting the public, not on other activity that is bureaucratic or a distraction. So, Alan thank you for your work leading on that area.

Now let me start substantively talking about the Home Office counting rules. This is an area of the criminal justice system, outside policing, not many people are familiar with, but they are rules which specify what the police have to record in detail as criminal offences.

Now clearly, it’s vital that accurate records are kept, but concerns have been brought to me as policing minister over the last few months that the rules developed over time have become excessively bureaucratic and compel the police to record the same reports of crime under multiple records, creating huge amounts of data entry duplication, which is preventing them being on the streets looking after the public where they belong.

Chris Rowley, the Chief Constable of Lancashire very kindly agreed, well I assume he agreed rather than being compelled, to look into this and provide a series of recommendations. Chris came up with these recommendations a few weeks ago and we have accepted in full and this morning we are formally announcing that.

One of his recommendations is that we cease the requirement for police to create separate crime records when there is more than one crime in a particular report or account that a victim has passed to the police.

All of those other crimes will still get recorded on the incident record so we can prosecute and investigate them. We don’t really need to create multiple criminal records when there is only one report or incident. So, we’re going to revert the principal crime rule for all crime which was the case until relatively recently in 2017. We are also removing the requirement to record minor public order offences where no victim has been identified or when the police turn up, there is nothing to see.

Of course, that will still be recorded as an incident, and used for intelligence purposes, but creating a whole new crime record where this is no victim and nothing when the police turn up is taking up a lot of time which could be better spent catching criminals.

We are also making clear frivolous allegations of criminal offences should not be recorded as a criminal offence unless a criminal threshold has clearly been met. We don’t think being rude or insulting is a police matter. Officers are not the thought police. And where something is reported and it doesn’t meet that clear criminal threshold, we don’t want that being investigated or to be recorded as a crime, we don’t want to waste police time on that kind of thing. We will very shortly be publishing guidance clarifying where that threshold should sit.

So, what’s the impact of the changes I have described? What is the impact on policing? Well, the NPCC, the National Police Chiefs Council, have done some sums on this, and they have calculated that making the changes I have described will save 443,000 hours of police time each year. Almost half a million hours of police time. Instead of being spent filling in forms and bureaucracy, they will be spent catching criminals and supporting victims.

This is an enormous impact the public and policing will welcome. I want to see these changes implemented as soon as possible. Nothing annoys me more than government processes taking months and months or years and years. So, I have pressed colleagues to get this done fast. We should actually be able to get these changes rolled out next month. The changes I have described will take practical effect just a few weeks from today.

We’re not going to stop there. I would like to go further and there will be a second phase to the work on counting rules which I hope Chris is willing to continue working on. We will look at various other things like the National Standards for Incident Recording for example and the way that the outcomes of investigations are recorded. I think currently there is 20 or 30 ways the outcomes of investigations are recorded. So, we are going to see if we can go further and lift the burden off the shoulders of policing, because we want to see police chasing criminals, not paperwork.

So, Chris, Alan, thank you again for the work you’re doing on this over the last few months. As a return on a few months’ work, saving half a million hours of police time, every year, forever, is a pretty good return on investment.

So, Chris I want to say thank you very much for everything you have done.

Now secondly one of the other areas brought to my attention shortly after being appointed Policing Minister a few months ago was the demand mental health places on police time. This was raised by people from Mark Rowley of the Met to frontline emergency response officers in Croydon, which is the borough I represent in Parliament.

Everyone was raising this as a concern. The concern was cases that were basically medical, a mental health crisis, where there was no threat to life or safety, either to the individual themselves or the public more widely, were getting passed to policing, rather than being dealt with as a medical or social services incident and taking up a huge amount of police time.

Turns out there has been some fantastic work done on this in Humberside to define more appropriately who deals with what incident, which also benefits the individual. If someone is having a mental health crisis, it’s not really that helpful to have a police officer turn up without medical support.

In Humberside, led by Chief Constable Lee Freeman – who I initially just discovered was initiated by Chris when he was Chief Constable beforehand. It’s called “Right Care Right Person”.

Humberside Police estimated that just in their force area alone, it’s saving something like 15,000 hours a year, just in Humberside, which is actually a small police force.

They have done this in partnership with the local NHS, the local ambulance trust and local authorities.

The concept here is we will apply nationally across the whole country via a National Partnership Agreement.

My colleagues at DHSC, the ministers over there, have embraced this concept enthusiastically which is good news and we are hoping the National Partnership Agreement between policing, the Home Office, the NHS, the Ambulance Trust and the Department of Health and Social Care will be in place and ready to be rolled out in the coming months.

Well, it says here in the coming months, but I’m hoping by the summer we’ll be in a position to get this done. Let’s show a sense of urgency. Because again, that’s going to really help the individuals suffering from mental health crises, as well as save enormous amounts of police time that could be better spent protecting the public.

So once again, thanks to Alan, to the NPCC, the APCC as well, for the work they’ve been doing in developing that model. I think it can make a real difference.

And that is a good moment, I think, to also thank police and crime commissioners, who I know have been working extremely hard on these topics. I can see Donna Jones from Hampshire; I can see Roger, my good friend from Essex. I know you have been putting a lot into this as well.

And this partnership between the Home Office, policing and police and crime commissioners I think makes these kind of reforms really work. So, a big thank you for what you’ve been doing as well.

Now the third area, where I think there is an opportunity to do more is the way the wider criminal justice system functions.

Now, I mean partly getting cases heard more quickly before the crown court, which is recovering still from COVID and the barristers’ strike last year, but it also means getting cases charged a lot more quickly.

And there has been a very effective pilot run in I think Cheshire, Merseyside and Wales, where the most urgent cases have had charging decisions made by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in a matter of a few hours. Which is a big step forward from where it’s been in the past. And I’m delighted to say the Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill, has agreed to roll that out nationally – I think by the end of the year. So that will give us a huge benefit in terms of getting charging done more quickly.

But I think there is a lot more we can do, in terms of getting our cases well prepared and sent to the CPS in good condition. I think we can probably improve a bit.

Some forces, like Cambridgeshire, have got a really good dedicated criminal justice unit, who help frontline officers get their cases prepared and sent to the CPS. They have got the highest case file success rate in the country. I think there may be a case to work with police forces to see if we can do a little bit more in that area.

But I also want to see changes made that will reduce some of the other burdens on policing, around for example redactions, where case files have to be redacted prior to sharing with the CPS.

We’re looking at ways of making legislative amendments, via the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, to either reduce or in some cases remove the redaction requirements on policing before case files are shared with the CPS, prior to a charge decision. And then perhaps reduce, but not eliminate, the redaction required before cases are then passed to barristers, solicitors and the courts.

And if we are successful in doing that, again that could save hundreds of thousands of hours of police time each year that could instead be spent chasing criminals.

And all of those things, the mental health work I mentioned, the work we’re doing together with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the CPS, it is all in addition to the 443,000 hours of police time saved by the announcements being made today.

So, I think all of those initiatives have enormous potential to free up police time for the frontline. It is all very well hiring extra officers but we have got to make sure their time is well spent protecting the public.

Now before I finish, I would like to say a word about ethics, integrity and standards.

We have clearly had quite a lot of public commentary on this over the last few weeks and the last few months. We had the Casey Report into the Met just a few weeks ago, which makes for very sobering reading for those of us that are involved in policing.

It is quite clear we have more work to do to earn and retain the trust of the public, which is a critical prerequisite of protecting the public. As Robert Peel said 150 years ago, without public confidence policing cannot do its job.

So, we’re working in the Home Office very closely with the policing community to make sure Her Majesty’s Inspectorate’s 43 recommendations on vetting are being implemented. And Andy Cooke, the chief inspector is going to make sure those are indeed being implemented in the coming months.

We’re making sure that police officers are being checked against the Police National Database to identify anyone else who should not be serving as an officer. And the College of Policing, I can see Andy Marsh is here I think – Andy’s there – is working with us on some new statutory guidelines on vetting. I think those are out for consultation, or the consultation may just have closed at the moment.

But in addition to that, we in the Home Office have committed to review the rules around police officer dismissal.

Because a point that Mark Rowley and others have made is that chief officers cannot run their forces well, effectively cannot root out misconduct, if they cannot control effectively who is in their force.

The rules around dismissals are quite a convoluted. Misconduct cases involve legally qualified chairs, who have the final say. And the process for poor performance is extremely convoluted. It is also very difficult to remove an officer who fails vetting once they have gone through their probationary period.

So, we initiated a process to review those rules. That will conclude in the next few weeks. And I anticipate making announcements probably in middle to late May, where we will propose some changes to address the issues I have just referred to.

It is vital that chief officers have the powers they need to run their forces and make sure that only officers who deserve to serve in uniform are able to do so.

And I am very confident, you can take the steps I’ve described, if chiefs officers show the leadership I know they are committed to showing and if officers from the frontline to the top embrace the changes that are needed, I know we will earn the right to have the public’s confidence.

It has been shaken somewhat recently but I know it can be restored. I am completely confident that it will be restored. And by working together, I know that we’re going to do that.

Thank you to everyone here who has already made a contribution to that work. I think it is critical not just to restore and maintain policing’s reputation but it is also critical prerequisite of protecting the public as well.

Let me just finish by saying that I think the work we have done here on these issues, around the bureaucracy that we are getting rid of, the work on mental health, the work we are doing with the CPS, is a really good example of government working together with policing, working together with police and crime commissioners, to ensure the public are protected.

I have found it, just speaking personally, an enormously rewarding and highly motivating process these last few months. It shows that we can deliver, if we work together very quickly, in a matter of weeks or months, not years. None of us want to see these changes taking ages.

And I feel that we are really making a difference for the public in the work that we are doing. And if we continue to work together in this way, recruiting more police officers, getting rid of bureaucratic distractions, focusing on higher standards, getting back to common-sense policing, protecting the public, prosecuting criminals and supporting victims, I know we’re going to make a criminal justice system and a police force we can all be proud of.

So let me just finish by saying again, a huge thank you to everybody here and in police forces up and down the country who do such incredible work to keep out communities safe. Thank you for what you’ve done so far and thank you for, more importantly, what we are going to do in the future.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 13 April 2023.

National Police Chiefs’ Council estimates changes to recording processes will save 443,000 hours of police time a year.

Police will have more time to prioritise victims of crime and bring criminals to justice under new rules announced today to cut unnecessary red tape when recording crime.

Victims reporting multiple offences will have more support from police, as officer time is freed up to focus on bringing justice rather than on duplicative record keeping. It follows a National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) review which found that 443,000 officer hours are spent filling in unnecessary forms and burdensome administrative tasks – time that could be better spent cutting crime and keeping our streets safe.

All reported crimes for a single incident will now consistently be recorded under the ‘principal offence’, rather than as multiple entries on a database that effectively re-records the same incident. The police will continue to pursue all offences involved, understanding how they are linked, as part of their thorough investigative work.

This will bring a consistent approach to the recording of all offences, seeing crime recorded more accurately. It also aims to drive up charge rates for crimes and make sure perpetrators face the highest penalties. For example, under these changes, where a victim has experienced stalking with criminal damage occurring to their property, police will now put stalking at the forefront of their investigation.

Today’s changes will be accompanied by training for officers in how to investigate such offences, to get the best results for victims.

Minister for Crime and Policing Chris Philp said:

Overall crime, excluding fraud and computer misuse, has halved since 2010, but we are determined to go further.

Victims must always be at the centre of our response to crime. Listening to forces and cutting unnecessary red tape will mean police officers can focus on solving crime and delivering justice for victims, as well as preventing it from happening in the first place.

We are confident that we will reach our target to have most police officers in history. With less unnecessary admin, we want them to be our most effective police officers in history too.

The changes will:

standardise counting rules with the ‘principal offence’ approach across the board, to record the crime which has the most impact on a victim
save police time by no longer recording cases of messages that might offend someone or where a public disturbance occurred but has been resolved. This will require sign-off by a supervisor such as a Police Sergeant
make it easier to cancel recording of a crime where there’s enough evidence that none was committed. The sign-off required will vary on the gravity of the offence
The changes will take effect in the coming weeks, following recommendations from an in-depth review by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for Crime Data Integrity, Chris Rowley.

Gavin Stephens, Chair of the NPCC, said:

Police officers must be totally focused on keeping people safe and ensuring they feel safe. We want to provide the best possible policing to the public and the work of the Police Productivity Review is aimed at removing barriers and improving effectiveness.

The review has already identified that 443,000 officer hours are spent filling in forms and dealing with unnecessary administrative tasks. These equate to the equivalent of attendance at 220,000 domestic abuse incidents, 270,000 burglaries, or almost 740,000 antisocial behaviour incidents.

Any move to free up our frontline to serve our communities is welcome.

Andy Marsh, CEO of the College of Policing, said:

We all want to see the police spending as much time as possible catching criminals and keeping the communities they serve safe.

Officers and staff must be able to maintain high standards and properly record and investigate reported crimes whilst not becoming bogged down in unnecessary bureaucracy. Anything that helps policing focus on its core mission, including this change, is to be welcomed.

Marc Jones, Chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said:

As the public’s representatives to policing we have long called for changes to the way crime is recorded, to ensure it is more transparent and less bureaucratic.

We welcome these changes which will simplify recording, enable the police to focus on cutting crime and allow Police and Crime Commissioners to better hold our Chief Constables to account on behalf of victims and the public.

Spearheaded by the Home Secretary’s common-sense policing campaign, posting messages that may offend someone but where no victim has actually been identified should no longer be considered a crime.

Police will also be empowered to make decisions on cases where communications, such as text messages or letters, are malicious or rude, but not threatening. Officers should be on our streets investigating crimes like burglary, not comments made online. As such, they will consider if such issues should be dealt with by social media companies instead.

This follows new statutory guidance on the recording of so-called non-crime hate incidents, which will ensure police are prioritising the freedom of expression that our nation is built on.

And police will no longer need to record public disturbances that have already been dealt with or are quiet once the police arrive at the scene.

The improvements will give a clearer picture of police caseload and better hold them to account for their response. Reviews of the counting rules are regularly undertaken, with significant changes previously made in 1998, 2002, 2015 and 2017. The Crime Survey for England and Wales is the best measure of trends in crime experienced by the general public according to the Office for National Statistics and remains unaffected by the changes.

We are determined to bring all offenders to justice. Together with policing and the Crown Prosecution Service, we are looking at best practice models across England and Wales, and ensuring processes are proportionate. We will make sure the criminal justice system can work as one, reducing burdens such as unnecessary redactions, while maintaining victim and witness confidence.

Frontline public services must also match community and individuals’ needs. A new agreement between policing and health partners is being developed to deliver better care for people in a mental health crisis and free up police officers’ time to focus on fighting crime. This addresses concerns raised by Chief Constables over the amount of resource being diverted away from police work to respond to mental health emergencies.

The new National Partnership Agreement will be underpinned by the principle that mental health incidents should receive a health response first – while recognising some situations may still require police presence. Following this Agreement, local police and health partners need to work together to deliver improvements to triage methods used by the police, to ensure the right agency responds to a mental health incident, removing police involvement earlier in the process where it isn’t needed.

Further changes are expected following the NPCC’s review of police productivity, which intends to provide clear, practice and deliverable recommendations to improve the efficiency of policing.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 11 April 2023.

New offence will make it easier to prosecute a large organisation if an employee commits fraud for the organisation’s benefit.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 6 April 2023.

Data sharing with the financial sector will begin today as the government cracks down on illegal migrants accessing banking services.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 5 April 2023.

The Home Office has announced that a barge in Portland Port, Dorset, will accommodate migrants.

A berthed vessel will, for the first time, accommodate asylum seekers in the UK. It will reduce the reliance on expensive hotels and deliver a more orderly, cost effective and sustainable asylum accommodation system.

Today (Wednesday 5 April), the Home Office has announced that an accommodation barge in Portland Port, Dorset will be used to reduce the unsustainable pressure on the UK’s asylum system and cut the cost to the taxpayer caused by the significant increase in Channel crossings. Currently hotel accommodation for asylum seekers is costing £6 million a day.

This is an important step in progressing the Prime Minister and Home Secretary’s priority to stop the boats. Last week the government announced that surplus military sites will also be used to accommodate migrants who have entered the UK illegally on small boats. This is part of the wider efforts to secure alternative, more appropriate accommodation than expensive hotels. This comes alongside the return of the landmark Illegal Migration Bill, which is designed to stop the Channel crossings by ending illegal entry to the UK and ensuring that those who do come here illegally will be detained and swiftly removed.

The barge, called the Bibby Stockholm, will be berthed in Portland Port and will accommodate about 500 single adult males whilst their asylum claims are processed. It will provide basic and functional accommodation, and healthcare provision, catering facilities and 24/7 security will be in place on board, to minimise the disruption to local communities. People whose claims are refused and have exhausted their appeal rights will be removed from the UK.

The use of vessels for accommodation brings the UK in line with other countries around Europe, for example in the Netherlands where migrants have successfully been accommodated on vessels. The Scottish Government have also used vessels for Ukrainian refugees.

Migrants are due to be moved onto the Bibby Stockholm in the coming months. The Home Office is in discussions with other ports and further vessels will be announced in due course.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said:

The Home Secretary and I have been clear that the use of expensive hotels to house those making unnecessary and dangerous journeys must stop. We will not elevate the interests of illegal migrants over the British people we are elected to serve.

We have to use alternative accommodation options, as our European neighbours are doing – including the use of barges and ferries to save the British taxpayer money and to prevent the UK becoming a magnet for asylum shoppers in Europe.

All accommodation will meet our legal obligations and we will work closely with the local community to address their concerns, including through financial support.

Chief Executive of Portland Port, Bill Reeves, said:

We are keen to play our part in the national effort to house some of the thousands of people needing accommodation.

We encourage everyone in the community to approach this with an open mind and help us show other areas just how successful this type of initiative can be, both for the migrants and the local community.

There will be close co-operation with local agencies, including the health and emergency services during the preparations for the vessel’s arrival and its operation. We will also work closely with local community and voluntary groups.

Bibby Stockholm will be operational for at least 18 months and stay berthed in the port during that time.

Use of alternative accommodation such as vessels are not only more cost effective than hotels, but they are more manageable and orderly for communities and offers employment opportunities in the broader area to support the vessel.

We are working closely with Portland Port, the local authority and key partners to make sure appropriate arrangements are in place, including liaising with local police.

The government recognises that using alternative sites and vessels involves difficult decisions, but urgent action is needed to reduce expensive hotel use, with the sites providing much needed accommodation.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 3 April 2023.

People who work with children will be legally required to report child sexual abuse or face sanctions under new plans unveiled by the Home Secretary.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has today (Sunday 2 April) committed to a mandatory reporting duty, subject to consultation, for those working or volunteering with children to report child sexual abuse, after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) heard heart-breaking testimony from thousands of victims let down by professionals turning a blind eye to their suffering.

Mandatory reporting was one of the key recommendations made by the IICSA report to crack down on child sexual abuse and address the systemic under-reporting of this crime.

The first step to introducing the duty is a call for evidence which will be open to professionals, volunteers, parents, victims and survivors, and the wider public. It will be the start of extensive consultation to ensure everyone’s views are represented ahead of implementing the new duty.

Suella Braverman said:

Child sexual abuse is one of the most horrific crimes facing our society, it devastates victims, families and whole communities.

The protection of children is a collective effort. Every adult must be supported to call out child sexual abuse without fear.

That’s why I’m introducing a mandatory reporting duty and launching a call for evidence. We must address the failings identified by the Inquiry and take on board the views of the thousands of victims and survivors who contributed to it.

I would encourage everyone to engage with the process once it starts – it is important to have a national conversation about this to help to shine a light on this terrible – but too often hidden – crime.

The call for evidence will be published alongside the government’s full response to the Inquiry shortly.

To immediately support professionals who work with children, we are providing £600,000 to the NSPCC whistleblowing helpline. If a professional has concerns that their organisation isn’t reporting or handling child abuse cases appropriately, they can contact the NSPCC whistleblowing helpline for support.

The helpline was launched in 2016 following Professor Alexis Jay’s report into the child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. Since then, it has provided advice to 1,062 individuals and led to over 300 referrals to the police.

Additional funding is also going to be made available for the NSPCC’s adult helpline, which is for anyone who is concerned about the welfare of a child. The helpline has established procedures and protocols around referring reports to statutory safeguarding partners, including children’s services and policing, so that they can be investigated and acted on.

The government is also speeding up the process for members of the public to find out if someone they know has committed child abuse in the past in order to better protect vulnerable people from predators close by.

Known as Sarah’s Law in memory of 8-year-old Sarah Payne, who was murdered by a previously convicted sex offender in 2000, the updated guidance for the Child Sex Offender’s Disclosure Scheme will make it easier for the public to raise a concern online and reduce the timeframes for police to respond to enquiries, which will help the public get the information they need sooner and protect children from harm.

Dr Sara Payne MBE, the mother of Sarah Payne, said:

After the news of my Sarah’s murder in 2000, I promised her that her death would not be in vain or forgotten or indeed, only remembered for the manner of her death. Since 2010, after years of campaigning, so many children have been protected in her name, a much more fitting epitaph to my princess.

I would like to thank my family, my own dedicated Phoenix team and the Home Office Sarah’s Law team for helping us all to reach this day, where I am pleased to announce the latest Sarah’s Law updates for 2023.

There is always more to do. This is an historical ‘turning point’ day today for child protection and I for one, sincerely welcome these much-needed changes to Sarah’s Law 2023, as we all know keeping up with ‘sex offenders’ is not and will never be ‘enough’.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 31 March 2023.

National Age Assessment Board will help make decisions more consistent and robust.

The Home Office has bolstered the process for checking the age of asylum seekers claiming to be children with the launch of the National Age Assessment Board today, Friday 31 March.

The National Age Assessment Board brings together a hub of specialist social workers, who will support local authorities and the Home Office to resolve age disputes by conducting age assessments.

The board will set the national standard for age assessments, acting as a centralised team for local authorities and providing expert advice and training to improve the consistency and quality of how age assessments are carried out.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said:

“It’s a sad fact that there have been cases of asylum-seeking adults pretending to be children to try and game the system, which presents a serious safeguarding risk.

“It is vital we use every tool at our disposal to weed out people falsely claiming to be children so we can prevent abuse of our services and protect children in the UK.

“That is why we are introducing the National Age Assessment Board to set the national standard and ensure assessments are as robust as possible, alongside our commitment to deliver scientific methods to assess age as soon as possible.”

The board will begin a phased rollout in two regions in the UK, London and the West Midlands, before branching out regionally and nationally later this year once recruitment has concluded, which will see around 40 social workers in post.

They will begin by carrying out full Merton-compliant age assessments upon referral from local authorities or on behalf of the Home Office, and will also use scientific methods once these are brought in.

Merton assessments are holistic assessments, involving detailed background research and analysis of information, and are fundamentally different from the initial age assessments that are carried out when people arrive at the border.

Many of those arriving in the UK who claim to be children don’t have clear evidence like a passport to back this up, making it difficult to assess their age.

The introduction of the board is a key part of measures to reform age assessments under the Nationality and Borders Act, and will sit alongside wider measures like scientific methods to ensure age assessments are more robust.

This will ultimately help to prevent asylum seeking adults posing as children as a way of accessing support they are not entitled to. It will also help remove the safeguarding risks of adults being wrongly assessed and placed in the children’s care system, and those which arise if a child is inadvertently treated as an adult.

The need for stronger measures to assess age comes as statistics show that between 2016 and December 2022 there were 7,900 asylum cases where age was disputed and subsequently resolved, of which half (49% – 3,833 people) were later found to be adults.

An example includes a man who crossed the Channel and claimed to be 16 years old. Immigration officers carried out an initial age assessment and deemed him to be 21 years old. He was dispersed to a hotel and referred to a local authority by his solicito. Following a full assessment by the local authority, it transpired that he had claimed asylum and lived in another European country for five years, and was 26 years old.

More serious cases have seen adults being sent to children’s schools, or children being treated as adults, in both cases putting children at risk of harm.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 31 March 2023.

Domestic abuse victims will receive direct payments to help them to leave abusive relationships, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has announced.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 30 March 2023.

Commencement regulations for new fire safety legal provisions within section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 have been laid in Parliament.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 30 March 2023.

Government, law enforcement and private sector agree on a new plan to crack down on money laundering, kleptocracy and sanctions evasion.

Corrupt elites and criminal gangs who abuse our financial system will be identified and stripped of their cash through a new plan to tackle economic crime.

The Economic Crime Plan 2 builds on the foundations of its predecessor with new actions to improve the system-wide response to economic crime through enhanced cooperation between government, law enforcement, supervisory agencies and the private sector.

Our response to economic crime will be bolstered by 475 new highly trained financial crime investigators, spread across intelligence, enforcement and asset recovery at key agencies. This increased capacity will be targeted toward the detection and disruption of money laundering, and the recovery of an additional £1 billion in criminal assets over the next 10 years.

Building on our unprecedented package of sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we are now expanding the National Crime Agency’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell to target more corrupt elites and their enablers, while consolidating the effectiveness of UK sanctions.

As criminals seek new ways to launder their profits, we are investing £100 million in cutting edge technology, including data analytics, to equip law enforcement with the tools they need to stay one step ahead. A new multi-agency crypto cell will be established that combines law enforcement and regulators to pool expertise and more effectively identify, seize and store illicit crypto assets.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said:

Economic crime undermines the integrity of our financial system and weakens our national security.

Through robust legislation and a strengthened law enforcement response, we’ve come a long way in cracking down on dirty money, but this plan helps us go further.

Backed by our partnership with the private sector, we have the resources and expertise we need to identify criminal networks and confiscate the proceeds of their illicit activities.

Cooperation with the private sector is critical to the plan’s success, which is why we will develop a new approach to public-private prioritisation, which will maximise our collective intelligence and resource to detect and disrupt economic crime.

The UK’s supervisory regime will be strengthened, with increased information sharing between partners, and greater government oversight to ensure effectiveness and compliance with Money Laundering Regulations.

Treasury Lords Minister Baroness Penn said:

Economic crime harms our economy and destroys lives. More funding from government and the new contribution from industry through the new levy will allow us to deliver a step change in our response.

While the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill progresses through Parliament, this multi-stakeholder plan ensures that we can maximise the new powers through strengthened capacity and greater expertise. This will enable us to swiftly and effectively act to identify fake companies and hold criminals to account.

The 3 year plan is backed by £400 million in additional investment to tackle economic crime over the Spending Review Period. This includes £200 million HMG investment and £200 million from the Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy raised from the private sector. This funding will ensure a step-change in our response by supporting the delivery of critical economic crime reforms, including those set out in the Economic Crime Plan. The Plan also commits us to exploring new ways to reinvest suspected illicit funds back into combatting economic crime and supporting victims.

Bob Wigley, Chair of UK Finance said:

Tackling economic crime is a key priority for the banking and finance industry and we welcome the launch of the Second Economic Crime Plan.

Partnerships between the private sector, law enforcement, regulators and government are vitally important. Through this new plan we will continue to work together to ensure our collective system more effectively combats all forms of economic crime.

Graeme Biggar, Director General of the NCA said:

The NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre has led the way in bringing together the public and private sectors to ensure systems are in place to tackle high harm financial crime to protect the UK’s public, financial structures and reputation.

The reforms detailed in the Economic Crime Plan are crucial to move us to the next level in our fight against the dirty money that fuels serious and organised crime. They will enhance our capabilities to identify illicit finance and drive it out of the UK; targeting corrupt elites, and the money launderers criminal gangs rely on.

Michael Izza, Chief Executive of ICAEW, said:

We are supportive of the measures set out in this plan which will help in the fight against economic crime, and we will continue to invest in robust supervision, education and intelligence-sharing.

A key success of the first Economic Crime Plan was developing the partnership between accountancy and the public sector to crack down on money-laundering.

Tackling economic crime and driving dirty money out of the UK’s financial systems will be best achieved by Government working closely with professional body supervisors, and we look forward to collaborating on the actions outlined in the second Economic Crime Plan.

Read the Economic Crime Plan