Government Rejects Treasury Committee’s Recommendation That A Single Law Enforcement Agency Tackle Economic Crime

The government has published its response to the Treasury Committee’s 2022 report on economic crime.

The Committee were “unhappy” with the government’s progress in tackling the “alarming” rise in economic crime. Work being done be government was “not enough or urgent enough to stem the rise, let alone start to bring it under control“. Critical of the government’s “bewildering” multi-agency approach (including the National Economic Crime Centre), the Committee’s central recommendation was that there be a single law enforcement agency to tackle economic crime. Yet the government response to the Committee’s report robustly rejects this proposal, stating that it believes that a single body would be “unwieldy and ineffective“, citing the many different types of fraud (public or private sector; against individuals or businesses; national or local). The government maintains that “a multi-agency approach is the right way to fight economic crime and fraud“.

The government is due to publish a second economic crime plan later this year.

Daniel Chadwick