Official Statistics

User guide to Asset recovery statistics

Published 12 September 2024

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

1. Introduction

Asset recovery statistics are published annually, presenting official statistics on the value and volume of proceeds of crime restrained, seized, frozen and subsequently recovered and receipted. The release also includes statistics on:

• the value and volume of proceeds of crime by the associated criminal offence types
• the value of compensation paid to victims through confiscation orders
• the amount of funds distributed to agencies through the Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS)
• the use of funds received by agencies through ARIS
• the amount awarded to projects via ARIS top slice funding
• statistics on international asset recovery

This publication provides a comprehensive guide to the asset recovery system, focusing on legislative background and definitions to enhance the statistics published in the Annual Statistical Bulletin for Asset Recovery. It also outlines the scope of the statistics, methodology employed to produce the statistics, information on the quality of the data sources and outputs and a quality statement on how this release meets the standards set out by the Code of Practice for Statistics.

This report is regularly reviewed and updated annually to reflect additions, changes to legislation and changes to the reporting of the statistics.

2. Overview of the asset recovery system

Asset denial by restraint (restraint orders), seizures (cash, listed assets) and freezing orders (account freezing orders) and asset recovery through criminal confiscation, civil forfeiture, and civil recovery are used to deprive criminals of their money, or other property connected to criminal activity, and recover the proceeds of crime. They represent important tools in the disruption of criminal activity and an alternative, or supplementary, mechanism to criminal prosecution and conviction. Retrieved criminal proceeds can subsequently be reinvested for use in tackling crime and in some cases be returned in compensation to victims.

Figure 25: Overview of the process of the asset recovery system for Proceeds of Crime under POCA

The chart in figure 25 shows an overview of the process of the asset recovery system for the proceeds of crime under POCA using the criminal confiscation system and the civil system.

Notes:

1. Money held in accounts maintained with relevant financial institutions can be frozen; it cannot be detained.
2. The asset recovery options following an unexplained wealth order (UWO) would not necessarily just be a civil recovery order, they could be any of the other Part 5 forfeiture powers. (The statutory presumption would only apply for civil recovery applications).

3. Asset recovery legislation

An overview of the different legislative processes and powers that are applied by law enforcement agencies to deny and recover assets are briefly outlined below.

3.1 Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) 2002

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 outlines the statutory framework used to enable investigation and prosecution of crimes relating to benefit from criminal conduct; or crimes relating to property obtained through unlawful conduct or which is intended to be used in unlawful conduct. It is also used to deprive criminals of their money or other property connected to criminal activity.

Detailed within the section below is the legislation within POCA 2002 that allows different powers used by law enforcement agencies to deprive criminals of their criminal assets. The asset recovery powers utilised under POCA 2002 can be applied through criminal confiscation, civil forfeiture, and civil recovery.

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is the legislation most often utilised by law enforcement agencies for recovery of illicit finances and is therefore explained in more detail compared to other legislations.

Criminal powers

Explanations of the POCA criminal legislative powers are outlined below. An illustrative example of the asset recovery process by criminal confiscation powers is given in figure 25 and figure 26.

Restraint orders

Part 2 (and Part 3 for Northern Ireland) of POCA contains powers to restrain, and/or seize and detain property. These powers are available to prevent a suspect or defendant from making certain property unavailable for satisfying a confiscation that has been or may be made against them.

Restraint orders are granted within the Crown Court and grant the prosecutor the ability to freeze ‘realisable property’ so that the value may be preserved to satisfy a potential confiscation order at a later date. Restraint orders still allow the defendant to claim reasonable living expenses from the frozen assets, the scope of reasonable living expenses is decided by the court.

Once a restraint order has been granted the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will become the lead enforcement agency.

A restraint order can be applied for at any point within the investigation, including during the criminal investigation (pre-arrest) and after a confiscation order has been granted (post-arrest). The order can be granted by the Crown Court without any notice to the suspect provided the statutory conditions for the making of an order are fulfilled. The threshold to get a restraint order granted is higher than the threshold for civil denials. The prosecution must show the defendant gained these assets illegally and that they are likely to dissipate their assets without a restraint order in place.

It is not compulsory to issue a restraint order before a confiscation order can be granted.

There is no upper limit for the length of time a restraint order can be in place for or the value of assets that can be restrained. The value is usually equal to the amount the defendant has been determined to have benefitted from their crime.

Confiscation orders

Part 2 (and Part 3 for Northern Ireland) of POCA makes provisions for the confiscation of a person’s benefit from criminal conduct, following a criminal conviction. If the relevant statutory conditions are satisfied, the Crown Court must deicide the benefit amount and recoverable amount for the defendant and make a confiscation order requiring them to pay that amount.

When the relevant statutory conditions for the making of a confiscation order are met, and an order is made the defendant will be liable to pay the full amount by a date set by the court. Confiscation orders usually have to be paid within 6 months of being enforced however this can be extended for a multitude of reasons. Once the deadline to pay the order has elapsed interest will start to accrue on the remaining balance.

Payment towards the confiscation order can come from the proceeds of crime restrained (under a restraint order) or from other assets, whether determined to be the proceeds of crime or not. Other individuals can pay the order on the defendant’s behalf. If a restraint order was in place, this will not end when a confiscation order is granted but will instead end when the full amount has been paid by the defendant.

The value of the confiscation order can be varied (increased or decreased) based on re-evaluation of the defendants’ assets. If the confiscation order value is lower than the benefit amount the case can be revisited, and the confiscation order uplifted (increased) if agencies become aware of further assets the defendant possesses. If a defendant is deemed to be uncooperative in confiscation proceedings and not actively trying to pay their order then a default sentence will be activated, this can be on top of a custodial sentence the defendant might already be serving for their offence. The length of the default sentence is based off the value owed by the defendant.

Compensation ordered through confiscation orders

A court imposing a confiscation order can also order an offender to pay compensation to the victim/victims of their crime. If the offender does not have the means to satisfy both their confiscation order and compensation order, the court can order the compensation order to be paid from the sums recovered as part of the confiscation order. This is paid before the rest of the order is fulfilled.

Civil powers

Explanations of the individual non-conviction based powers available under POCA are outlined below, including forfeiture and civil recovery. An illustrative example of the asset recovery process by civil powers is given in figure 25, figure27, and figure28.

Civil forfeiture

Part 5 of POCA contains powers that enable the seizure, detention and forfeiture of cash and listed assets as well as powers for freezing, and forfeiture of monies held in relevant bank accounts without a criminal conviction. Powers can be only used to seize/freeze and forfeit assets if they are determined on the balance of probability to be or to represent property obtained through unlawful conduct or property intended for use by any person in unlawful conduct. A forfeiture order can be granted by a Magistrate’s Court following an application by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officers, constables, Serious Fraud Office (SFO) officers or accredited financial investigators (FIs) for forfeiture of cash, monies within a relevant account or certain listed assets that have been seized and detained under POCA.

Cash seizures

Cash seizure powers under POCA enable the seizure of cash with a minimum value of £1,000. Once initial seizure has occurred an application has to be made to the Magistrates Court within 48 hours for further detention and forfeiture of the cash. Applications for the detention of cash can be granted for 6 months at a time for a total of 2 years whilst the investigation is ongoing.

Cash seizure does not require a criminal prosecution or conviction. As a result, the cash seizure detention provisions effectively prohibit the respondent from accessing or using the seized cash during the investigation up to the completion of the application to forfeit the cash on the basis that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the cash is recoverable property or property that was intended for use in unlawful conduct.

A cash seizure does not just refer to physical coins and notes but also for bonds and cheques. Often once cash has been seized it is placed within interest accruing bank accounts so the value detained can increase throughout the investigation.

Change introduced under Criminal Finances Act 2017

The Criminal Finances Act 2017 (CFA) amended POCA legislation, most notably introducing 2 new forfeiture powers allowing law enforcement agencies to forfeit bank and building society accounts (account freezing orders (AFOs) and listed assets). CFA also introduced unexplained wealth orders (UWOs), an investigative tool to give law enforcement agencies (LEA) and partners new powers for tracing and recovering: the proceeds of crime; property obtained through unlawful conduct; or property intended for use in unlawful conduct. UWOs fall under civil recovery power whereas AFOs and listed assets fall under civil forfeiture powers.

UWOs, listed assets and AFOs came into effect from 31 January 2018 in England and Wales and 28 June 2021 in Northern Ireland. These powers significantly improved LEA’s ability to tackle economic crime by being able to seize and forfeit a wider remit of assets and disrupt criminal activity.

Account freezing orders (AFO)

AFOs were introduced as part of the CFA 2017 amendments to POCA powers. It allows provisions for senior HMRC officers, constables, SFO officers and accredited FIs to apply to the Magistrates Court for the freezing of money in a relevant account with a minimum value of £1,000. This is another civil power and therefore a criminal conviction is not required for an AFO to be granted. AFOs can be granted for 6 months at a time for a maximum 2-year period.

AFOs prevent any persons from accessing or otherwise using the money in the bank or building society account until the AFO is discharged or the completion of the application to forfeit.

Non-senior enforcement officers can exercise this power with prior approval from a judicial office or a senior officer. AFO applications can be made without giving the affected parties notice if this would prejudice any steps to secure forfeiture of the money. An AFO is a compulsory order that has to be granted before forfeiture of funds held in a bank or building society account can be applied for.

Listed assets

Listed asset orders were introduced as part of the CFA 2017 amendment to POCA powers. A listed asset order grants HMRC officers, constables, SFO officers or accredited FIs the powers to seize certain items of personal property. Under listed assets only precious metals, precious stones, watches, artistic works, face-value vouchers and postages stamps with a minimum value of £1,000 can be seized. The assets listed above can be seized if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that it is recoverable property or intended for the use in unlawful conduct.

Any seized property can initially be detained for a 6-hour period, but this detention period can be extended by a further 42 hours with the approval of a senior officer. Following an application to the Magistrates Court the property can be detained for 6 months at a time for a maximum period of 2 years. A listed asset seizure is a mandatory order before a listed asset forfeiture can be granted.

3.2 Other legislation

Although the most common method of seizing/denying and recovering proceeds of crime is through using POCA 2002, there are other legislations that can be used and are included within the asset recovery annual statistical bulletin figures. These include:

• Anti-terrorism and Security Act 2001
• Criminal Justice Act 1988
• Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986
• Drug Trafficking Act 1994
• Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984

There are many reasons that other legislations other than POCA 2002 are used (for example, case pre-dates POCA 2002 legislation, timeliness of orders being granted), however the majority reported on within this statistical series use powers granted through POCA 2002 legislation.

4. International asset recovery

4.1 International cooperation

International cooperation refers to when the UK assists another country or another country assists the UK on an investigation. This might be due to assets being held in different countries, the defendant fleeing or victims of the crime being in another jurisdiction. International cooperation can occur through mutual legal assistance and the process is outlined below.

Mutual legal assistance

Mutual legal assistance (MLA) is a method of international cooperation between states for obtaining assistance in the investigation or prosecution of criminal offences. This includes requests for criminal or civil asset denial and recovery.

Property and assets held by a defendant internationally can be recovered using mutual legal assistance with foreign states and then the assets recovered can be shared between the participating countries.

For the purposes of the asset recovery statistical bulletin international cooperation is defined as asset recovery orders that are:

• executed in England and Wales, or Northern Ireland following the receipt of a mutual legal assistance request from another country which resulted in an asset share
• executed abroad following the receipt of a mutual legal assistance request from England and Wales, and Northern Ireland which resulted in an asset share

4.2 Grand corruption

Grand corruption is often defined as acts of corruption involving the misuse or abuse of high-level entrusted power by senior public officials as defined by reference to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). Grand corruption threatens political stability and sustainable development. Acts that might fall into this category include bribery of public or private officials, embezzlement, illicit enrichment, abuse of function or the laundering of the proceeds of crime. When individuals commit acts of grand corruption LEAs work to detain and recover assets that are deemed to have originated from their criminal activities and where possible return them to victims.

5. Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS)

ARIS was introduced in 2006 to allow a proportion of the proceeds of crime recovered under POCA, to be redistributed to agencies based on their relative contribution to recovering assets, and central government (Home Office and HM Treasury). Prior to funds being redistributed under ARIS around £14 million is set aside to fund the ARIS top slice grant scheme.

The Home Office’s share of ARIS receipts represents core funding that would otherwise be paid by HM Treasury as part of the regular Spending Review. This funding supports Home Office investment in priority front line activity, including supporting and safeguarding victims, delivering the policy response to economic crime and the national cyber strategy and delivering statutory obligations.

5.1 ARIS payments to agencies

The use of ARIS allocations is decided by each agency receiving payment. The Home Office encourages agencies to invest ARIS funds into areas that will increase asset recovery or where appropriate to fund local crime fighting priorities for the benefit of the community. See figure 26, figure 27, and figure 28 for the proportional split of ARIS receipts amongst agencies.

Figure 26: Overview of the criminal confiscation system process for proceeds of crime under POCA

The chart in figure 26 shows an overview of the criminal confiscation system process of the asset recovery system for the proceeds of crime under POCA.

Figure 27: Overview of the civil system process for proceeds of crime – forfeitures under POCA

The chart in figure 27 shows an overview of the civil system process of the asset recovery system for the proceeds of crime under POCA using forfeiture powers.

Figure 28: Overview of the civil system process for proceeds of crime – civil recovery under POCA

The chart in figure 27 shows an overview of the civil system process of the asset recovery system for the proceeds of crime under POCA using civil recovery powers.

5.2 ARIS top slice

The ARIS top slice is a competed grant launched in 2015, available to all POCA empowered agencies, to support investment in key national and regional capabilities or to test innovative new approaches to improve asset recovery processes and performance. The funds for the grant come from a small deduction from ARIS receipts prior to their distribution to POCA agencies and the Home Office. Decisions on funding allocations are made by Ministers from the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, and Attorney General’s Office.

6. Asset recovery statistics coverage

6.1 Overview, time period and geographic regions

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin provides data on the value and volume of proceeds of crime restrained, seized, detained, obtained and recovered through criminal confiscations, forfeitures and civil recovery. It also includes statistics on the value of compensation paid to victims, the use of funds by LEAs received through ARIS, the ARIS allocations distributed to these agencies and the value of international asset recovery.

The bulletin series provides data from financial year 2011 to 2012 to present and covers asset recovery performance in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. This release does not include data covering Scotland. This bulletin will cover the latest 6 financial years, from financial year ending March 2019 to financial year ending March 2024.

The bulletin is published on a yearly basis, information on the publication calendar can be found in section 13.

6.2 Data splits provided in the publication

The statistics provide the following breakdowns on the value and volume of proceeds of crime recovered by:

• asset recovery power
• location of jurisdiction
• financial year
• offence type
• agency sector

Statistics on the ARIS payments distributed to POCA agencies are broken down by:

• financial year
• law enforcement agency

Experimental statistics on international cooperation are broken down by:

• total value and value shared and or retained by the UK government
• financial year

Experimental statistics on grand corruption are broken down by:

• financial year
• asset recovery stage (denial, recovery, return)
• asset recovery power (criminal vs civil)

Further information on experimental statistics can be found in section 12.

6.3 Other asset recovery statistics

There are other published sources of asset recovery statistics that may be of interest, including: the collection of civil recovery and taxation published by HMRC, the annual report and accounts published by NCA and the annual unexplained wealth order report published by Home Office. This unexplained wealth order report is a statutory requirement under the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 to report annually on the number of UWOs applied for and obtained each year.

7. Uses of the reported statistics

The statistics are used by law enforcement and prosecution agencies to inform operational decisions and the Home Office alongside other government departments to inform asset recovery policy decisions with the aim of contributing to an increase in the value of proceeds of crime recovered.

It should be noted that these statistics are also used to respond to parliamentary questions and requests submitted under the Freedom of Information Act.

We are interested in developing these statistics to meet user needs and welcome feedback from users. Further information on providing feedback can be found in section 17.

8. Data sources and limitations

The data used to create these statistics are obtained from several administrative and operational databases, which are covered below. It should be noted the accuracy of the statistics are dependent on the recording and management of information stored on these databases.

8.1 Joint Asset Recovery Database (JARD) data

Data on values and volumes of proceeds of crime (excluding civil recovery and international asset recovery) included in the statistical release are taken from JARD which is an operational database that is managed by the NCA. It is a central database which stores information on the seizure, detention, and recovery of the proceeds of crime across all LEAs. JARD is funded through ARIS top-slice.

Data is entered by accredited FIs within LEAs which includes the Police, the CPS, the SFO and local authorities. The operational nature of the data means that it is entered each day by these agencies. This in turn means that JARD data entries are adjusted to reflect changes in the progress and, resolution of orders and the addition of new orders.

JARD data includes all orders reported in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, however as noted above this release does not include data covering Scotland as Scotland has its own separate asset recovery system. The orders recorded under JARD represent those which have been processed under all legislation which is available for recovering the proceeds of crime including POCA 2002. These legislations are outlined in section 3.2.

Limitations

As the data are directly entered by law enforcement officers onto the live database, any errors in the input of data may therefore impact the accuracy of statistics produced for the value and volumes of proceeds of crime for each respective power. Where known errors have been identified, corrective measures have been applied.

The statistics may not report timely figures on orders which are still active from previous historical years because it can take several years for an order to proceed from the asset denial stage to the asset recovery stage. For example, when an order is at the asset recovery stage, a criminal can make payments towards the order over several years after the initial seizure was made. Thus, the statistics presented might not report the asset denial and asset recovery stages for one order within a given period.

Moreover, the data recorded in JARD by law enforcement officers for the criminal offence types under the ‘Primary Offence type’ field does not always provide a representative figure of the true criminal offence type for a given order. This is due to officers selecting an approximate offence type when recording an order on JARD if there is no specific criminal offence or if an order has multiple offences linked to it selecting only one of them. Therefore, the statistics presented for criminal offence types might not report the true criminal offence type for a given order.

Following the release of the September 2022 edition of the bulletin, further work on understanding trends observed for cash seizures was undertaken by the Home Office and NCA. This work established that cash seizures were underreported, for both the volume and value of assets seized. Subsequent conversations have confirmed this reporting issue is prevalent across law enforcement agencies, primarily impacting just this seizure sub type, with the initial proceeds of crime seized being recorded under different legislation and the associated forfeiture order being recorded under POCA.

There is ongoing work to understand the scale of this data reporting issue across law enforcement and implement a solution for future reporting under this seizure sub type. Users should treat statistics presented for the cash seizures seizure sub type in this release with caution due to this problem and note revisions will be implemented in future statistical releases.

Variations

It should be noted there will be variations in the data recorded for each financial year due to revisions made in retrospection of the live administrative JARD system. Figures included in the latest statistical release supersede previous officially reported figures. Therefore, any direct comparisons of changes in asset recovery performance should not be made between the latest and previous releases of the asset recovery annual statistical bulletin.

Data Extraction

Data used in the release is extracted annually in July.

8.2 Civil recovery data

The data presented on civil recovery orders is provided by the NCA. It includes the value of proceeds of crime recovered through civil recovery orders.

Data provided includes orders obtained by all agencies with civil recovery powers including the NCA.

Data is collated by the NCA and is updated regularly to reflect changes in the progress of orders, the resolution of orders and addition of new orders.

Limitations

The data provided by the NCA does not provide breakdown on the individual value of civil recovery orders. The data provided includes one figure for the value recovered for each financial year and does not provide data on the volume of cases. This means that within this publication civil recovery orders do not have a recorded volume.

8.3 ARIS payments data

The data presented for ARIS payments is extracted from an administrative database managed by Home Office. This database uses data recorded on JARD for confiscation orders and METIS data for forfeiture orders. This includes information on orders that have been processed under the POCA 2002 legislation within a given financial year and provides details such as lead agency and amount of assets recovered.

Data has been cleansed by the ARIS team and the Home Office finance team as part of the processes undertaken each quarter for calculating ARIS payments.

The statistics have been produced using a combination of live operational data recorded in JARD and financial data in METIS. Data which is recorded on both data sources are entered by either law enforcement officers or finance colleagues, which means there could be errors made at the imputation stage. Any errors in these original data sources which have been identified by POCA agencies or the ARIS team during the payment process will have had corrections implemented.

These statistics may not include figures for a POCA agency in every financial year because they might not have processed any orders which fall under the remit of the ARIS scheme. Hence, it might not be possible to make comparisons over time for a given agency.

8.4 The use of ARIS funds survey

The use of ARIS funds survey is run by the Home Office and distributed by email to POCA agencies that participate in the ARIS scheme. The survey is designed to develop insights into how agencies spend the ARIS funds that are allocated to them. The survey questions ask agencies to outline how they spent their ARIS funds in the previous financial year. The lag of one financial year allows time for the agencies to receive all ARIS payments and allows time to collate the necessary information. Further limitations on the use of ARIS is discussed in section 9.3 and section 9.4.

8.5 ARIS Top Slice data

The data presented for ARIS Top Slice is extracted from an administrative database managed by the Home Office. This database includes information on agencies that have been allocated ARIS Top Slice funding for projects that support national and regional capabilities or improve asset recovery processes and performance.

This data is entered regularly by the Home Office and reflects projects and funding as and when there are any changes.

This experimental release of ARIS Top Slice data will cover the reporting period beginning from financial year ending March 2023 to present. Data from previous financial years will be reviewed and assessed for future release suitability by the Home Office.

For financial years ending in March 2023 and March 2024 the data source has been expanded to query the outcomes of projects.

8.6 International cooperation data

The data presented on international cooperation and asset return is taken from administrative databases which are managed by the Home Office. The data provides information on the orders executed by law enforcement in England and Wales, or Northern Ireland on behalf of another country, or vice versa. Data is also recorded on orders where funds recovered in the UK are returned to another country.

This data is entered regularly by the Home Office and reflects the progress of orders as and when there are any changes. The data entered on the database has been, where possible, quality assured against other data sources managed by POCA agencies including JARD.

Limitations

The data set only includes international cases where there has been an asset share the Home Office has been made aware of, there will be other international asset recovery cases where the UK has not assisted and is therefore not captured within the Home Office database.

Data prior to financial year 2019 to 2020 is not recorded due to quality issues which mean it is difficult to identify when assets were recovered.

8.7 Grand corruption data

To supplement the internally managed administrative data, data presented in this report on grand corruption has been requested from agencies in a reporting exercise conducted by the Home Office. This exercise involved requesting a return on grand corruption workload from all agencies known to have seized and / or recovered assets from grand corruption cases in the previous financial years. Data was returned to Home Office by NCA’s International Corruption Unit, NCA’s International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre, SFO and CPS. The grand corruption data submitted, where possible, has been quality assured against other data sources managed by POCA agencies including JARD.

In previous publications data on grand corruption only included data from financial year 2022 to 2023, for this publication the grand corruption series has been backdated to 2019 to 2020 and is included within the data tables.

Limitations

The statistics presented will only represent those agencies which have provided a return for this reporting exercise and not necessarily the entire group of agencies who engage in this work. The accuracy of the statistics is dependent on the recording and management of information held by the respective agencies.

Data has not been provided prior to the financial year 2019 to 2020 due to quality issues which mean it is difficult to identify when assets were recovered for orders.

Some assets were denied/recovered in currencies other than pounds sterling, where this has been the case, where possible the value has been checked on JARD. If this was not possible conversion into pounds sterling was completed by the team prior to publication.

9. Methodology

The information below outlines the main processes involved in producing the statistics used in the asset recovery annual statistical bulletin including data extraction, statistics production, and quality assurance. This section details the method used to produce the statistics for criminal confiscation and civil system for asset recovery.

Any revisions to these figures will be announced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics once a solution to this issue has been identified.

In summary, it is important that users take into consideration the following limitations:

• coverage: reported statistics on the proceeds of crime in the bulletin are based on England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Therefore, we do not capture any Scotland orders in the bulletin on asset recovery, should users be interested in assessing the scale of proceeds of crime in Scotland
• accuracy: there are a number of users who can update entries of orders on JARD, so current orders and those which are still ongoing from previous historical years may be subject to revisions to correct for data errors, to update the scale of alleged proceeds of crime and the scale of recovered proceeds of crime following successful or unsuccessful criminal or civil procedural outcomes

9.1 Value and volume of proceeds of crime statistics

The statistics presented on the value and volume of proceeds of crime restrained, seized, detained, frozen and recovered through criminal confiscation or civil powers are produced using aggregations of live operational data recorded in JARD except for civil recovery, taxation, and international asset recovery.

The main methodology is summarised below.

Criminal confiscation statistics

The value of proceeds of crime restrained from restraint orders is based on the estimated order value. This represents the predicted amount of monies to be restrained from the defendant once a restraint order is imposed. It is calculated using the amount of monies which the defendant is deemed to have benefited from criminal activity.

The value of proceeds of crime imposed from a confiscation order imposition is based on the order amount. It represents the amount of monies which the defendant is ordered to pay once a confiscation order has been imposed.

The main measure for the value of proceeds of crime confiscated is based on the distributed amount associated with a confiscation order. The distributed amount represents the value of proceeds of crime in receipts which have been recovered from the defendant following a confiscation order being imposed.

In September 2021, the report included statistics on the volume of payments recovered from confiscation orders, where the measure used for this was based on a proxy estimate of the volume of proceeds of crime imposed from confiscation order impositions. However, this measure has no direct correlation with the volume of proceeds of crime recovered from confiscation orders.

The data available on JARD for confiscation orders can include multiple payments made against an order for a given period. As these payments are against all orders, not just those imposed within the reporting period this is therefore an ineffective measure of performance and does not directly link to orders imposed within the reporting period. For this reason, releases from September 2022 will not report statistics on the volume of proceeds of crime (payments) recovered from confiscation orders, only the values. Previous releases before September 2021 will not be affected as the volume of payments recovered from confiscation orders was not previously presented.

Civil forfeiture statistics

The value of proceeds of crime seized from AFOs, cash seizures and listed asset orders is based on the finalised order amount. It represents the value of proceeds of crime that will be seized from the defendant given the civil proceedings have been completed. From September 2022, the value and volume of proceeds of crime seized from AFOs, cash seizures and listed asset orders will be presented in financial years based on the date when the seizure took place unless this field is not recorded. For orders where this field is not recorded, the date when the order is granted will be used to determine which financial year the proceeds of crime were seized. An assessment has been undertaken to determine this for quality assurance. From September 2022, the ‘Order (decision) date’ field will be used for cases with no recorded ‘Cash seizure date’ for all seizure powers. This approach that has been approved with operational partners,

A number of methodology changes have also been made in previous publications in relation to the value of proceeds of crime recovered from forfeiture orders. These changes have been listed below in order of date:

Table 3: Overview of previous methodology changes from previous publications in relation to forfeiture orders.

Date of publication	Summary of change
September 2017 to 2020	The main measure for the value of proceeds of crime recovered from forfeiture orders was based on the current order amount associated with forfeiture order. This represented the value of proceeds of crime deemed to be recoverable from the defendant whilst the civil proceedings are being completed. The current order amount is a figure which could change following the completion of civil proceedings.
September 2021	The main measure for the value of proceeds of crime recovered from forfeiture orders was based on the order amount under a detention order. This represented the value of proceeds of crime seized from the defendant whilst civil proceedings were ongoing. The order amount under a detention order could change following the completion of civil proceedings.
September 2022	The main measure for the value of proceeds of crime recovered from forfeiture orders will be based on the original order amount for a forfeiture order once it has been granted. The original order amount represented the value of proceeds of crime in receipts which will be recovered from the defendant at the point where the civil proceedings have been completed. The original order amount replaced the ‘CDO/CFO Order amount’ variable to record the value of cases under forfeiture orders.
September 2023	This statistical release implemented the use of ‘Case Jurisdiction’ variable to record the location of jurisdiction for cases under forfeiture orders where no ‘Jurisdiction of Court Making Order’ is recorded. This approach was approved with operational partners.

The main measure for the volume of proceeds of crime seized, frozen, and recovered from a type of order, such as a seizure, freezing order or forfeiture order is based on the number of orders where a type of order has been seized, frozen or recovered. The volume of orders represents the number of processed orders where proceeds of crime will be seized, frozen, and recovered from the defendant given the civil proceedings have been completed.

Civil recovery statistics

The main measure for the value of proceeds of crime recovered from civil recovery orders is based on the finalised order amount. The finalised order amount represents the value of the proceeds of crime in receipts which will be recovered from the defendant given the civil proceedings have been completed.

The main measure for the volume of proceeds of crime recovered from civil recovery orders represents the number of processed orders where proceeds of crime will be recovered from the defendant given the civil proceedings have been completed.

Statistics on the proceeds of crime recovered from civil recovery order receipts were extracted from an operational NCA database. These statistics are reported on a financial year basis covering the years 2018 to 2019 until 2023 to 2024.

International cooperation statistics

The value of the proceeds of crime recovered from international cooperation is the full value of the proceeds of crime recovered from a respondent as a result of international cooperation. This only includes international cooperation where the UK has assisted in an asset share there might be other international cooperation cases that are not included.

The value of the proceeds of crime retained by the UK Government is defined as the proceeds of crime recovered from the respondent which is retained by the UK Government, following an asset share.

The main measure for the volume of proceeds of crime recovered through international cooperation represents the number of orders where the UK has engaged in asset sharing and the funds recovered under asset recovery powers will be divided between countries.

Grand corruption statistics

The value of proceeds of crime restrained, seized or frozen from grand corruption cases is based on the estimated order value for restraint orders associated with grand corruption and the finalised order amount for AFOs, cash seizures and listed asset orders associated with grand corruption.

The value of prohibition orders is the estimated value of assets at the time the order was granted and does not include interest incurred on the associated assets. Figures are presented in financial years based on the date when the seizure took place unless this field is not recorded then the date when the order is granted, or for cases outside of court, the date of the agreement will be used to determine which financial year the proceeds of crime were restrained, seized or frozen.

The value of proceeds of crime recovered from grand corruption cases is based on the distributed amount associated with a confiscation order presented in the financial year that receipts were recovered from the defendant. For forfeiture orders, this value presents the value of proceeds of crime in receipts which will be recovered from the defendant at the point where the civil proceedings have been completed presented in financial years based on the date the original order amount is granted. Civil recovery orders are based on the finalised order amount.

The value of proceeds of crime returned to foreign governments is based on the total amount transferred to the foreign state and presented in the financial year the funds were transferred.

• in previous reports grand corruption statistics were only presented for financial year 2022 to 2023, for the first-time grand corruption statistics are presented from financial year ending March 2020 to financial year ending March 2024

• in the previous report in September 2020, the total value of proceeds of crime restrained, seized or frozen reported for asset return orders in the financial year 2020 to 2021 presented in Annex B was based on the total value of proceeds of crime restrained, seized or frozen up until the financial year ending March 2021

Financial year statistics

These reported statistics are presented on a financial year basis.

In a financial year, the recorded data covers the time period between the 1 April until the 31 March. For example, the financial year ending 2015, reports the period starting from the 1 April 2014 until 31 March 2015.

Offence type statistics

A breakdown of the 7 main defined criminal offence type groups for the purposes of asset recovery reporting in relation to economic crime is provided in Table 4.1 below.

The criminal offence type groups are based on the JARD ‘Primary Offence type’ field for entries by criminal offence types for orders submitted by FIs. Orders without a recorded entry for the criminal offence type have been grouped under the ‘Unassigned’ group.

Table 4.1: Primary criminal offence type group on JARD and the defined criminal offence type group

Primary criminal offence type group on JARD	Defined criminal offence type group
Drug trafficking	Drugs
Money laundering - drugs	Drugs
Other fraud/embezzlement/deception/crime of dishonesty	Fraud
Tax and benefit fraud	Fraud
VAT fraud	Fraud
Excise duty fraud	Fraud
Trading standards offences	Fraud
Money laundering - other	Money Laundering
Burglary/theft	Theft
Robbery	Theft
Handling stolen goods	Theft
Human trafficking	Modern Slavery
Slavery/servitude/forced or compulsory labour	Modern Slavery
Organised immigration crime (OIC)	Other
Other crime	Other
Counterfeiting/intellectual property/forgery	Other
Pimps and brothels/prostitution/pornography	Other
Intellectual property crime	Other
Arms trafficking	Other
Unknown	Other
Bribery and corruption	Other
Terrorism	Other
Vehicle offences	Other
Blank	Unassigned

Agency sector statistics

A breakdown of the 5 law enforcement agency groups for the purpose of asset recovery reporting in relation to economic crime is provided in Table 4.2 below. The 5 groups are:

• local police forces
• regional police forces
• local authorities
• departments, agencies and public bodies
• unassigned

These agency groups are based off conversations with agency representatives and the JARD field ‘Case Law Enforcement Agency Agency’ for entries submitted by FIs within law enforcement agencies. Orders without a recorded entry for the law enforcement agency type have been grouped under the unassigned group.

Table 4.2 List of enforcement agencies by sector

Agency Sector	Agency
Local police forces	Avon & Somerset Constabulary, Bedfordshire Police, British Transport Police, Cambridgeshire Constabulary, Cheshire Constabulary, City of London Police, Cleveland Police, Cumbria Constabulary, Derbyshire Constabulary, Devon & Cornwall Police, Dorset Police, Durham Constabulary, Dyfed-Powys Police, Essex Police, Gloucestershire Constabulary, Gwent Police, Hampshire Constabulary, Hertfordshire Constabulary, Humberside Police, Kent Police, Lancashire Constabulary, Leicestershire Constabulary, Lincolnshire Police, Merseyside Police, Metropolitan Police Service, Norfolk Constabulary, North Wales Police, North Yorkshire Police, Northamptonshire Police, Northumbria Police, Nottinghamshire Police, Police Service of Northern Ireland, South Wales Police, South Yorkshire Police, Staffordshire Police, Suffolk Constabulary, Surrey Police, Sussex Police, Thames Valley Police, Warwickshire Police, West Mercia Constabulary, West Midlands Police, West Yorkshire Police, Wiltshire Constabulary
Regional police forces	East Midlands RART, East Midlands Special Operation Unit -EMSOU FFI, ERSOU PECTx7, ERSOU POCUx5, London RART, NE ROCU (North East Regional Organised Crime Unit), North East RECU, North West RART, South East RART, South West RART, Wales Regional Economic Crime Unit (RECU), West Midlands RART - Top Tier, Yorkshire & Humber Regional Unit
Departments, agencies and public bodies	DEFRA Investigation Services, Department for Social Development Northern Ireland (DSDNI), DWP, Environment Agency, Financial Conduct Authority, Food Standards Agency, HMRC Enforcement & Compliance, Home Office Immigration Enforcement (+UKBA Legacy), Insolvency Service, Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, MOD, National Investigation Service (NATIS), Natural Resources Body for Wales, NCA - ACE Team, NCA (+ SOCA Legacy), NHS Counter Fraud Authority, Organised Crime Partnership, Pensions Regulator, Post Office Ltd, Royal Mail Group, Security Industry Authority, SFO, SOCA (NCS Legacy), Velindre NHS Trust (NHS Counter Fraud Service Wales)
Local authorities	Data in the local authorities category includes those forces which are recorded as local authority on JARD. These include enforcement teams within local councils.

Average metrics used for long term comparisons

The statistical release includes an average metric which is used to understand trends within the data over a longer period. This metric is presented for the values and volumes for the respective POCA powers. It provides a measure of whether current performance is in line with the overall trend observed for the respective POCA power. An average metric can remove some volatility observed in a given financial year and provide a measure more reflective of the data.

In releases prior to September 2021, the mean average was used for comparisons on performance over the longer term. After a review by the statistical team and consultation with users, the decision was taken to use the median average in subsequent releases. This is because the median is less impacted by outliers in the underlying data.

Furthermore, there have been changes to the metric used when making comparisons over the long term. Statistical releases prior to September 2021 used the mean value or volumes under the respective POCA powers for the previous 6 financial years.

From September 2022 statistical releases will use the median as the metric for long term comparisons on value and volumes under the respective POCA powers. This decision has been taken because the median can better account for outliers in the underlying data sources. Further updates on how future releases of the Bulletin will be further developed will be included within this Asset Recovery Statistic User Guide.

9.2 Accounting for inflation

Following a review of current methodologies, the statistical team have provided figures in real values for the following sections: Main Headlines, Use of ARIS Funds and ARIS payments. These statistics have been included to reflect changes in the wider economy that affect the value of money which can be invested into the system by POCA agencies. Prior to this release, there were consultations with stakeholders on the presentation of these figures to ensure that they were necessary and clear for users of this product.

The latest GDP Deflator series produced by HM Treasury at the time of production for this statistical release will have been used to produce figures presented in real terms.

9.3 ARIS payment statistics

Statistics presented on ARIS allocations were extracted from an administrative Home Office database. It includes information on the allocations under the ARIS Scheme which are distributed across LEAs within a given financial year. These statistics are reported on a financial year basis covering the financial years 2018 to 2019 until 2023 to 2024.

9.4 Use of ARIS funds statistics

The data presented on the Use of ARIS funds is taken from the annual Use of ARIS Funds Survey. The survey that asked POCA agencies about ARIS funds spent in the financial year 2022 to 2023 ran from 17 January to 31 January 2024.

Data from the Use of ARIS Survey is cleansed by Home Office to ensure that there is only one response for each organisations and that only those who have received ARIS funds are included . The accuracy of survey returns is dependent on the recording and management of information held by the respective agencies and whether they interpreted the question as intended (see below).

Statistics presented will only show how agencies that responded to the survey spent ARIS funds, not how all POCA agencies spent them. The trends reported in the bulletin may therefore not be representative of how all ARIS funds that were spent in those years were used. It is also worth noting that statistics on the proportion of ARIS funds spent on asset recovery work, crime reduction projects, community projects and miscellaneous projects are sensitive to the spending patterns of POCA agencies that receive large sums of ARIS monies.

Data on total annual ARIS spend is lower than total annual ARIS allocations in each year. This discrepancy may be due to a number of reasons including: non-response, failure to disclose all expenditure, some agencies not being bound to spend ARIS allocations in the same financial year and/or misunderstanding of survey questions.

Interpretation of survey questions

There are 4 ways in which POCA agencies appear to have misunderstood survey questions. Firstly, there is some indicative evidence that some POCA agencies were accounting for ARIS funds they were allocated in the previous financial year, instead of funds they had spent that financial year. As noted, these 2 figures may be different for some because not all POCA agencies are required to spend ARIS funds in the same year they were allocated. Secondly, it appears that at least one organisation included in their response funding they received as part of Top Slice. Thirdly, POCA agencies were asked to ‘provide amounts in thousands’, which was interpreted differently by different organisations. Some submitted their figures in full while others submitted their figures without the final 3 zeros at the end for example, £1,000,000 was submitted as £1,000. Finally, some organisations described how they spent their ARIS funds without specifying the amount.

Above-mentioned differences in the format that POCA agencies submitted their figures affected survey returns for both the financial year 2021 to 2022 and the financial year 2022 to 2023. Some of those agencies were therefore contacted for further clarification and values were adjusted accordingly. This is why proportions reported in figure 19 and values reported in table 13 for the financial year 2021 to 2022 are different to those that were reported in the bulletin last year.

Response rates

From September 2023, the methodology used to calculate the Use of ARIS Funds Survey response rate has been revised. The Use of ARIS Funds Survey response rate is now calculated based on the proportion of POCA Agencies that received ARIS allocations in the years up to and including the financial year questioned in the survey. As a result of the changes, response rates reported in this release and last year’s release will be incomparable to those previously released. We will not retrospectively update the response rates for previous years.

Response rates for the Use of ARIS Funds Survey have been low in the past few years . Some agencies did not receive an invite to participate in some years, which could have further limited response rates. We therefore recommend treating findings with caution.

Year-on-year comparisons

Any year-on-year comparisons between the financial year 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 can be made with relative confidence because those surveys were largely run the same way. However, any comparisons over the 5-year period from the financial year 2018 to 2019 to 2022 to 2023 should be interpreted with caution because there were some differences and unknowns about how data in the financial years before 2021 to 2022 were collected: it is not known for sure which organisations were invited to respond to the survey in those financial years, the way the question was phrased was slightly different, and organisations were asked to provide their response in a different format.

9.5 International cooperation statistics

Experimental statistics on the assets realised from cooperating with other countries were extracted from an administrative Home Office database. These statistics are reported on a financial year basis covering the financial years 2019 to 2020 and 2023 to 2024.

Data has not been provided prior to the financial year 2019 to 2020 due to quality issues which made it difficult to identify where assets were recovered.

9.6 Grand corruption statistics

Experimental statistics for the value of proceeds of crime restrained, seized or frozen from grand corruption cases and total value of proceeds of crime recovered and returned from grand corruption cases were provided using several administrative databases managed by Home Office and operational partners. Data was returned to Home Office by NCA International Corruption Unit, NCA International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre, NCA, SFO and CPS. Data presented in this report was requested from Agencies in a reporting exercise conducted by the Home Office between May and July. This exercise will be conducted on an annual basis and involves all agencies known to conduct grand corruption work.

Experimental Statistics on the funds returned to other countries were extracted from an administrative Home Office database. These statistics are reported from financial year ending March 2020 to financial year ending March 2024.

10. Quality assurance

There are a number of quality assurance procedures which are completed for each annual statistical release which involves checking:

• consistency in data recorded across different systems and management information (MI) data
• reliability and completeness of specific variables
• trends and variations in specific variables, timeseries and the geographical breakdowns
• checks for retrospection against previous annual datasets
• identification of outliers within the data
• updates from policy and operational stakeholders on changes to legislation and reporting procedures that might affect the data

Further to these checks, several rounds of quality assurance are undertaken by the statistics team and external analysts who are required to complete a quality assurance (QA) checklist, to ensure the statistics reported are of high quality.

11. Presentation of data and revisions

Rounding

Figures presented in the ODS tables will be unrounded.

Figures presented in the statistical bulletin on the value and volume of proceeds of crime a restrained, detained, seized, and recovered from orders are rounded. The rounding applied to these figures is dependent on the magnitude of the figure shown and is presented in the table below.

In instances where rounded data is presented, users should be aware that the individual figures might not sum to the total figures shown due to rounding. Any associated percentages will be capped at 100% of the total.

Percentages have been rounded to the nearest percent based on the round-half-away-from-zero method. It should be noted that percentages are calculated using figures that were not rounded.

Table 5.1: Statistical release rounding policy range

Statistical release rounding policy range	Rounded to the nearest
0 - 1,000	10
1,001 - 10,000	100
10,001 - 100,000	1,000
100,001 - 1,000,000	10,000
1,000,001 - 10,000,000	100,000
10,000,001 - 100,000,000	1,000,000

Revisions

The Departmental approach to revisions and corrections for all of its statistical releases can be found here.

The statistics presented may be revised because the criminal and civil orders are subject to retrospective revision. This could be due to proceeds of crime being re-frozen to reflect changes in the value /or volumes of proceeds of crime that can be recovered from the offender. Revisions can also occur when the proceeds of crime restrained, seized, or recovered have been recorded in retrospection by a FI following an outcome. This means earlier statistics would not include those figures and would not capture the total proceeds of crime restrained, detained, seized, and recovered in that time period.

It should be noted the latest time periods are most likely to have revisions applied to them than those time periods which are further back in time.

12. Status of the statistics

Official statistics

National, official and experimental statistics are produced in a way which is compliant with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. In the development of the annual statistical bulletin on asset recovery, the Home Office has acted in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics and its supporting Principles.

Experimental statistics

The statistics on the Use of ARIS are considered as experimental due to the quality of the survey from which the statistics have been produced. The design and reporting of the survey is still under review by Home Office. Home office plan to improve the low response rate to capture a larger proportion of POCA agencies receiving ARIS funding and provide better coverage of agency ARIS spends.

The statistics on ARIS Top Slice funding are considered as experimental due to the quality of the administrative dataset which has been used in their production and the limited period the dataset captures. It is anticipated as the systems for recording ARIS Top Slice are developed and retrospectively cleansed by Home Office, these statistics will provide better coverage and a fixed methodology.

The statistics on international asset recovery are badged as experimental because they are not fully developed. It is anticipated as the systems for recording international asset recovery are introduced and become stable, these statistics will provide better coverage and a fixed methodology.

The Home Office together with partners in the international proceeds of crime (IPOC) Group plan to develop these statistics to provide a sufficient level of better coverage and a methodology compliant with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The plans to develop these statistics will also depend on the wider developments on a new informational technology system for asset recovery.

What are experimental statistics?

Experimental statistics are statistics that are in the testing phase and not yet fully developed, which may be due to the following reasons:

• they are being produced part way through a well-defined development programme, whether these statistics are new or changed versions of existing statistics
• the statistics are new but still subject to testing in terms of their volatility and ability to meet customer needs
• the statistics do not yet meet the rigorous quality standards of National Statistics

A rich variety of new measures is available from a new set of statistics, with components that have considerable immediate value to users; these users are aware of the statistics’ theoretical quality and can use them before we have completed all operational testing – the testing is designed to fully validate the measures to the standard expected of National Statistics.

Further information on experimental statistics can be found on the UK Statistics Authority’s website

13 Future publications

Publications will be released on the second Thursday of September every year.

Future releases of this Statistical Bulletin are pre-announced on the Statistics release calendar. These releases are produced and released in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

It is also published on the Publication Hub for UK National Statistics.

14. Pre-release access

This Statistical Bulletin is compliant with the Code of Practice for Statistics in line with other Home Office publications. Details on pre-release access for Home Office statistical publications can be found here.

The Pre-release access list for this statistical release can be found here.

15. Accessibility and previous releases of this bulletin

Previous releases of this Bulletin covering the financial years from 2011 to 2012 until 2022 to 2023 can be found here. It should be noted that previous releases might not be in accessible formats because they were released before 23 September 2020.

Any subsequent releases of this Bulletin after September 2020 will be published in an accessible format. This is in line with The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 legislation.

Users which are interested in receiving a specific Statistical Bulletin in a different format this can be requested. If you have any enquiries please email [email protected].

The statistics provided in this Bulletin have been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority against the Code of Practice for Statistics.

16. Development of these statistics

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin was developed to improve the level of transparency on Asset Recovery legislation by the Home Office. It was produced in response to a report published by the Public Account Committee (PAC) in July 2016 which outlined recommendations focused on developing information published on government performance for confiscation of property associated with criminal activity.

17. Further information, contacts, and feedback

Feedback

The Home Office welcomes feedback from users on its statistical releases and we are always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents.

If you have any feedback or enquiries about this statistical release, please contact the Asset Recovery Statistics team by email [email protected].

18. Quality statement

This quality statement relates to the Asset Recovery Annual Statistical Bulletin. It was developed to provide users with information on how this release meets the standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

18.1 Relevance

Relevance refers to the degree to which the statistical product meets user needs in both coverage and content.

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin includes data on the proceeds of crime restrained, denied, imposed and recovered over the previous 6 financial years, broken down by jurisdiction, financial year and legislative powers under POCA. Within the data tables the proceeds of crime relating solely to modern slavery criminal offence type is provided over the previous 6 financial years.

Statistics for orders by criminal offence types provided over the previous 6 financial years are available in the ODS tables.

Statistics on civil recovery orders, the use of ARIS funds by POCA agencies, ARIS Top Slice allocations distributed to POCA agencies, and international asset recovery are provided using data for the latest financial year. Differences in recording processes and availability of data means these statistics are presented over differing time periods. This allows comparison to be made on statistics reported over the same time period where possible.

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin is used by law enforcement and prosecution agencies to inform operational decisions, and the Home Office alongside other government departments to inform asset recovery policy decisions with the aim to increase the value of the proceeds of crime recovered.

There is regular engagement with users on the commentary and content of the bulletin to ensure it reflects the needs of end users. The release of the statistical bulletin in September 2021 involved internal and external stakeholder consultations on the new structure and content developed for the bulletin.

18.2 Accuracy and reliability

Accuracy and reliability relate to the proximity between an estimate and the unknown true value.

This section outlines the different data sources used within this publication and the acknowledged limitations with them.

Joint Asset Recovery Database

The data used to produce statistics on values and volumes of proceeds of crime in this bulletin are extracted from the Joint Asset Recovery Database (JARD). It is a central database which has records for orders where proceeds of crime are restrained, frozen, imposed and recovered across all POCA agencies and legislations.

Data is entered by accredited FIs within POCA agencies which includes the police, the CPS, the SFO and local authorities. The operational nature of the data means that it is updated on daily basis by these agencies as FIs create or update entries for each defendant’s respective order. Therefore, statistics reported in the latest bulletin, which refer to current orders, may be subject to revisions that control for data errors.

Civil recovery data

The data presented on civil recovery order receipts is collated and provided by the NCA. It includes orders on proceeds of crime seized, detained, and recovered through civil recovery order powers. This data is regularly updated to reflect changes in the progress of orders and addition of new orders. The database includes orders undertaken by all agencies including the NCA, that have civil recovery powers.

JARD cannot be used to present data on civil recovery due to limited reporting of these orders within this system.

ARIS payments data

The data presented for ARIS payments is extracted from an administrative database managed by Home Office. This database uses data recorded on JARD for confiscation orders and the Home Office internal finance system’s (METIS) data for forfeiture orders. It includes information on orders that have been processed under the POCA 2002 legislation within a given financial year and provides details such as the lead agency and amount of assets recovered.

Data has been cleansed by the ARIS team and the Home Office Finance team as part of the processes undertaken for each quarter for calculating ARIS payments.

Survey data on the Use of ARIS Funds

The data used to produce statistics on the Use of ARIS Funds is based on a survey of responses from POCA agencies which is managed by the Home Office. It is a survey which is run on an annual basis and is distributed to all POCA agencies who are involved with the ARIS Scheme and is designed to develop an understanding of how they spend funds which are allocated to them.

International asset recovery data

There are several different data sources used for different parts of the statistics produced on international asset recovery.

The data used to produce statistics on international cooperation and asset return are taken from administrative databases managed by the Home Office. They provide information on the orders executed by law enforcement in England and Wales, or Northern Ireland on behalf of another country, or vice versa.

Data is also recorded on orders where funds recovered in the UK are returned to another country. The data are updated regularly by the Home Office and will reflect the progress of orders as and when there are any changes.

Data presented in this report on grand corruption has been requested from agencies (SFO, NCA International Corruption Unit, NCA International anti-corruption coordination centre, CPS) in a reporting tracker exercise conducted by the Home Office. The statistics presented will only represent those agencies which have provided a return for this reporting exercise and not necessarily the entire group of agencies who engage in this work.

The quality of these data sources are managed and assured using the best practice guidance published by the UK Statistics Authority. This quality management includes:

• working with data suppliers to understand their data collection and validation methods and the operational context
• understanding how the data are used in an operational environment and any bias that may be created where the data is also used for performance metrics or other requirements
• considering how any changes to data definitions or sources may have affected statistics over time
• communicating to users about the quality of the statistics

An explanation of the data sources used and the quality of the statistics for each can be found earlier in this document in section 8.

The statistical team responsible for producing this bulletin have implemented quality assurance checks for the various data sources to ensure any missing entries are cleansed from data. If there is a known error identified for a data source the statistical team will have taken measures to correct these and provide an explanation in supporting documents.

18.3 Timeliness and punctuality

Timeliness refers to the time gap between publication and the reference period. Punctuality refers to the gap between planned and actual publication dates.

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin is released 4 months after the end of the reporting period for the latest financial year. The statistics included in the bulletin on the proceeds of crime restrained, seized, frozen, imposed and recovered is reported on a financial year basis, which covers the period between April until March in the following year. Hence, the annual bulletin released in September presents data collected up to the most recent financial year.

Data on the proceeds of crime as at the end of March is available in April. The statistical team takes data extracts in July to allow sufficient time for revisions on current orders processed towards the end of the financial year by POCA agencies.

The bulletin takes several weeks to produce due to the collation of data from several administrative and operational databases. Once the data is collated, there are several assurance rounds conducted by analysts within the Home Office to ensure the reported statistics meet the appropriate quality standards. Each release of the bulletin in September will also be approved in advance by senior stakeholders.

The publication dates for the asset recovery annual statistical bulletin are pre-announced on the release calendar available on GOV.UK which is in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. If there are any changes to a pre-announced release date, there will be an announcement made on the Home Office website and an explanation provided on the reasons behind the delay.

There have been no incidents where the statistical bulletin has been released late for all releases to date.

18.4 Accessibility and clarity

Accessibility is the ease with which users are able to access the data, also reflecting the format in which the data are available and the availability of supporting information. Clarity refers to the quality and sufficiency of the metadata, illustrations and accompanying advice.

The statistical bulletin is published on the Asset Recovery statistics section of GOV.UK at 9:30am on the second Thursday which falls in September.

Commentary included in the asset recovery annual statistical bulletin is published using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format, that is produced using internal UK government HTML Markdown software. There are accompanying data tables published with the bulletin and are provided in the Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) format.

From September 2020, the asset recovery annual statistical bulletin has been published in an accessible format which is in line with accessibility regulations for digital content from public bodies outlined in The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 legislation. It involved converting statistical commentary files previously published in Portable Document Format (PDF) into the HTML documents and migrating the data tables from Microsoft Excel to ODS format.

18.5 Coherence and comparability

Coherence is the degree to which data that are derived from different sources or methods, but refer to the same topic, are similar. Comparability is the degree to which data can be compared over time and domain.

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin is produced using data from various data sources. The data sources used in the bulletin are outlined below:

• JARD is used to extract data for proceeds of crime
• NCA operational data is used to extract data for civil recovery orders
• survey on the Use of ARIS Funds is used to extract data for the Use of ARIS funds
• Home Office administrative database is used to extract data for international asset recovery
• reporting exercise conducted by the Home Office to collate data on international grand corruption
• Home Office administrative database is used to extract data for ARIS payments

For these respective data sources with exception to JARD, there is no additional data which consistently records data for orders on the proceeds of crime restrained, seized, frozen, imposed and recovered by POCA agencies that can be used to make comparisons against the figures presented in the bulletin.

Data extracted from JARD can be compared with agency specific administrative databases that record orders involving the recovery of proceeds of crime under powers available under POCA. These databases are subject to limitations due to data coverage.

Data within the bulletin is presented for the following jurisdictions: England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Data recorded for Scotland is excluded from the statistical release as it has a separate asset recovery system. This data cannot be broken down into lower geographical breakdowns which means any amendments to geographies has no impact to the reported statistics.

Each release of this bulletin provides comparisons on statistics reported over a period of the previous 6 financial years.

18.6 Trade-offs between output quality components

Trade-offs are the extent to which different aspects of quality are balanced against each other.

The operational nature of JARD means that FI can make amendments to an order within a given financial year after it has finalised, mainly to update the proceeds of crime associated with an order after their recovery. The data collection process for this bulletin accommodates for this by extracting data at a later point to minimise the number of missing values recorded for orders. This trade-off ensures users are provided with high quality data as close to the period of interest.

Statistics presented on international asset recovery is produced using the latest data available for orders completed where the proceeds of crime have been recovered in a financial year. There might be ongoing orders within the same financial year where an agreement has been reached between the involved foreign states, but the proceeds of crime are due to be recovered. These orders are recorded on a basis determined by the date where the proceeds of crime are recovered and distributed to the UK state.

The associated data quality issues with these statistics are outlined clearly in the statistical bulletin with them being badged as experimental.

18.7 Assessment of user needs and perceptions

Assessment of user needs and perceptions refers to the processes for finding out about users and uses, and their views on the statistical products.

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin has been developed in line with the relevant customers of this product. It has consisted of regular discussions with policy customers in the Home Office and with wider operational partners such as National Economic Crime Centre, National Police Chiefs’ Council and Department of Justice Northern Ireland. This ensures customers have opportunities to provide feedback on changes they would like to see implemented in the following release where possible.

In advance of the release in September 2022, an internal consultation was held with different groups of customers including policy and analysts within the Home Office. The intention of this consultation was to understand how the statistical bulletin is used currently for these different groups and identify areas where the bulletin required future improvements.

The bulletin includes a section which provides contact details for external users to provide feedback on the statistical bulletin. These details can also be used by users to ask for clarification on information in the bulletin.

The asset recovery annual statistical bulletin has no further public consultation planned to date.

18.8 Performance, cost and respondent burden

Performance, cost and respondent burden covers the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of the statistical output.

The annual statistical bulletin for asset recovery uses various administrative databases which the Home Office has access to because they are either managed internally or there is a data sharing agreement with the relevant agency. It means there are no direct costs associated with the production of the statistical bulletin.

The release of the asset recovery annual statistical bulletin takes 12 weeks for the lead analyst to collate data and undertake the appropriate quality assurance within a team of additional analysts. This includes the lead analyst extracting data from various data sources which can involve lengthy procedures.

As part of the statistical release, the Principal Statistician and the Chief Statistician provide sign off on the statistical bulletin which requires additional time. These sign offs form part of the overall checks on data presented in this release.

There is a respondent burden on law enforcement agencies who are requested to provide information on how they spend funds allocated through the ARIS scheme in a separate survey generated by the statistical team. This burden is reduced for these agencies given the survey is live for 7 weeks. There is also a respondent burden on law enforcement agencies (SFO, CPS, NCA ICU, NCA ICCC) who are requested to provide information on grand corruption cases. This burden is reduced for these agencies by giving them 5 weeks to respond.

18.9 Confidentiality, transparency and security

Confidentiality, transparency and security relate to the procedures and policy used to ensure sound confidentiality, security and transparent practices.

In advance of each release, the bulletin is treated under the pre-release conditions which are outlined in the Code of Practice for Statistics. These conditions require the bulletin and supporting documents to be circulated to only those listed on the pre-release access list with the appropriate protective marking applied.

The statistics presented in the bulletin use a rounding policy where the orders are rounded to the nearest integer dependent on the scale for the relevant statistic. It is a measure which ensures individual orders can remain confidential to end users particularly as some orders are sensitive.