SOCA scores

UK£7million, the annual cost of administering the UK’s Suspicious Activity Reporting regime, is a “good spend” says Sir Stephen Lander, chairman of SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which houses the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), “It produces at least that return in terms of the effect on crime and terrorism.” He would like to see the figure rise to UK£10 million in order to maximise the benefits but much depends on the ‘police grant’, which must be set by 7 December. “So we should have an indication of our budget settlement by Christmas,” he told journalists at the launch of the first annual report to ministers on the SARs regime.

SOCA set itself some ambitious targets for overhauling the regime in March last year, with the publication of the ‘Lander Review’. The document contained 24 recommendations, all of which have been met to a greater or lesser degree. On the governance side, in October 2006, when SOCA formerly took responsibility for the FIU, it set up an independent SARs Regime Committee to oversee performance. Meeting quarterly, it comprises SOCA staff and external members from the law enforcement, government and trade bodies [1]. A separate Vetted Group, also established at the outset and comprising representatives from the reporting sectors, law enforcement and policy departments, now meets every six weeks to consider sensitive casework and reporting matters; it also approves SOCA guidance. Public engagement with the wider regulated community, another recommendation, occurs through quarterly sector-specific seminars for MLROs and senior management as well as visits: 181 were conducted in the year to October 2007. The focus so far has been on the banking, accountancy, legal and gaming sectors. Trust and company services providers have yet to be invited to a seminar, the same applies to factors and discounters, although there have been SOCA visits to both.