Financial Priorities (Hansard, 24 March 2003)

§ Mr. Paul Murphy

The information is as follows:

(a) Assets Recovery Agency

The annual budget for the Assets Recovery Agency is allocated by the Home Office. The final budget for 2003–04 is under discussion but will be between £10 million and £15 million. The budget for the Northern Ireland Branch of the ARA is allocated from this at the discretion of the Director The Director has made it clear that the Agency will function as a whole and where a specific case in Northern Ireland demands extra support, this will be provided by staff resources based in London.

Staff in London will also provide many support services for the branch in Northern Ireland leaving the team free to focus on investigations.

(b) Organised Crime Task Force

With the exception of a publicity budget of £50,000 to meet the cost of publishing the annual OCTF Threat Assessment and Strategy Documents and to promote the role of the OCTF and operational successes of partner agencies throughout 2003–04, no specific funding has been allocated to the Organised Crime Task Force. Individual constituent members of the OCTF are responsible for funding their involvement from within their overall organisational budgets. Costs for administrating the OCTF will be met from the overall resources allocated to the Security Policy and Operations Division of the Northern Ireland Office.

The Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has been allocated funding of £7.38 million in the financial year 2003–04.

In determining the financial priority for the Police Ombudsman's office, the budget allocation for 2003–04 was based on a submission to the N 10 by the Ombudsman in relation to the 2002 Spending Review, which requested appropriate funding to allow the Ombudsman's Office to meet it's statutory duties based on anticipated workload.