Home Office Funding County Lines Operation Orochi 2021/22

This decision seeks approval to accept the Home Office offer of grant funding for 2021/22 of up to £6,600,000. The funding will support the on-going work of the MPS County Lines Task Force – Operation Orochi. The operation is designed to reduce county-lines related violence across London and County Forces driven by intelligence and determined by levels of threat, risk and harm.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is requested to:

1. Approve Home Office funding grant of £6,600,000 for 2021/22 to undertake a range of activities to combat County Lines drugs supply and its associated threat, risks and harm.

2. Approve the continuation of 59 MPS officers and one police staff in the funded posts, with additional posts of 11 officers and one police staff post, commensurate with the additional funding awarded.

3. Approve utilization of up to £825,000 of the £6,600,000 grant funding to purchase fleet vehicles needed to undertake County Lines activity.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. This is a continuation of funding previously approved by MOPAC decisions PCD 785 and PCD 726.

1.2. The current grant funding ceased on 31/03/2021 and the grant offered for continuation will be for financial year 2021/22 only in line with the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s decision of a one-year spending review.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The proposed grant funding will support the MOPAC Police and Crime Plan by focusing on investigation, enforcement and disruption work against serious violent crime and the criminality of urban street gangs/Organised Crime Groups. It will also seek to reduce the exploitation of young people, seen through the running of county lines.

2.2. The 2021/22 grant funding of £6,600,000 is an increase of £1,000,000 above the approved funding for 2020/21. The additional funding will enable the recruitment of an additional 11 police officers and one police staff.

2.3. The funding will enable the acquisition of fleet vehicles to support the county lines activity.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. This proposal seeks approval to accept up to £6,600,000 of Home Office grant funding for 2021/22. The grant will support the funding of staff and officers as well as acquisition of vehicles.

3.2. The grant funding will fully meet the costs of the Operation Orochi unit in 2021/22. If funding does not continue beyond 2021/22 staff and officers will be re-deployed to other roles within the MPS.

3.3. If the funding does not continue beyond 2021/22 the grant agreement makes arrangement for either the retention of the vehicles by the MPS or return to the Home Office. If the vehicles are to be retained the MPS has made arrangements for the integration of the vehicles into the wider MPS fleet.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. This grant will be paid to MOPAC by the Home Office in the exercise of power conferred upon the Secretary of State pursuant to section 169 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and section 48 of the Police Act 1996 to make awards of grant funding.

4.2. The proposed acceptance by MOPAC of the grant funding is permitted under Schedule 3, Paragraph 7 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011.

4.3. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the DMPC has delegated authority to approve all bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding.

5. GDPR and Data Privacy

5.1. MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities.

5.2. MPS assure that a DPIA is not required as the activity undertaken by Operation Orochi uses conventional investigation methods already available to all Law Enforcement (LE) and used in investigations for drug supply.

6. Equality Comments

6.1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149 (1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

6.2. The MPS assure that an equality screening exercise was carried out which identified no negative impact towards protected and non-protected characteristic groups.

7. Background/supporting papers

• Appendix 1 MPS Report MPS Op Orochi – County Lines

• PCD 726 National County Lines Co-ordination Centre and County Lines Funding for MPS

• PCD 785 MPS County Lines Operation Centre