National County Lines Co-ordination Centre – Grant Funding

As the host body for the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC) MOPAC has been allocated £4.4m grant funding to continue its operation in 2020/21.

County Lines is a drug supply business model, predominately of Class A drugs, and is an industry believed to be worth in excess of £800m UK wide. The funding will enable the MPS to continue delivering an accurate analysis of the current threat posed by county lines, producing an effective operational response and developing and disseminating relevant strategy derived from best practice and Subject Matter Experts for national compliance.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. To approve the MPS to accept £4.4m Home Office grant bid funding as the host force and appointed budget holder for national activities relating to the continuation of the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre. The grant funding is for expenditure and is for the financial year 2020-2021.

2. To provide Grant Payments to the Third Parties outlined within the Annex D

1. Introduction and background

1.1. MOPAC/MPS host the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC). County Lines is a drug supply business model, predominately of Class A drugs, and is an industry believed to be worth in excess of £800m UK wide. This in turn stimulates the activity within the middle market drugs supply linked to organised crime.

1.2. The scale of the current complex threat posed by county lines in relation to the exploitation of children and other vulnerable persons to facilitate drug dealing is extensive and affects every police force area.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The National County Lines Co-ordination Centre is funded by the Home Office and is focused around delivering an accurate analysis of the current threat posed by county lines, producing an effective operational response and developing and disseminating relevant strategy derived from best practice and Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) for national compliance.

2.2. The NCLCC will enable the MPS to benefit from national collaboration to tackle and combat organised criminality and its impact on serious violence, use of weapons, drugs and trafficking. The NCLCC will also enable the MPS across all boroughs and other forces to have an enhanced response to keeping children and young people safe through safeguarding strategies and best practice.

2.3. Whilst MOPAC will be the initial recipient of the £4.4m funding as the centre is made up of officers/staff from a variety of forces there will be a need to transfer funding to these forces. The allocation to the various forces is set out in Appendix D.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The estimated costs for the co-ordination centre in 2020/21 is £4.4m all of which is to be funded from the Home Office grant. If the funding is not renewed, the officers and staff will be re-deployed back to their original forces.

3.2. Detailed information is contained in the restricted section of the report.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (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. The MPS is subject to the requirements and conditions placed on it as a 'State' body to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018. Both legislative requirements place an obligation on the MPS to process personal data fairly and lawfully in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals.

5.2. Under Article 35 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Section 57 of the DPA 2018, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) become mandatory for organisations with technologies and processes that are likely to result in a high risk to the rights of the data subjects.

5.3. The Information Assurance and Information Rights units within MPS will be consulted at all stages to ensure the projects meets its compliance requirements. The acceptance of the grant does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no GDPR issues to be considered.

6. Equality Comments

6.1. The design and implementation of the NCLCC has undergone initial equality screening. Due regard has been taken to the Equality Act’s Public Sector Equality Duty under Sec 149 of the Equality Act 2010. Real consideration has been taken to assess equality impact caused by the proposed business change including effective engagement and analysing relevant equality information. As a result no negative impact has been identified to any individual and/or group safeguarded by a protected characteristic and to those who are not. Further reviews will be conducted (if necessary) and process monitoring completed. If as a result of the continual development of the NCLCC Equality Impact is identified, a full Equality Impact Assessment will be initiated

7. Background/supporting papers

7.1. The MPS Report.