Home Office Grant Funding Operation Orochi Uplift 2021

This decision seeks approval for the acceptance of £4,700,000 of unconditional Home Office (HO) grant funding in support of Operation Orochi and County Lines activity. The funding can be spent across 2021/22 and future years. The funding will be used in the main for additional officers including three additional operational teams, vehicles and equipment. The paper also seeks approval for the use of £950,000 of the grant to acquire vehicles in support of County Lines activity.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve Home Office unconditional funding grant of £4.7m to undertake a range of activities to combat County Lines drugs supply and its associated threat, risks and harm.

2. Approve utilisation of up to £950k of the £4.7m grant funding to purchase fleet vehicles needed to undertake County Lines activity, and

3. Approve the initiation of procurement for the base vehicles required for the fleet augmentation as Fleet Services do not have sufficient manufacturer contracts in place for the acquisition of the necessary vehicles.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. MOPAC approved receipt of Home Office grant funding of £6.6m for 2021/22 for the continuance of the then existing Operation Orochi County Lines activity in June 2021 [PCD990].



1.2. The Home Office has now identified additional funding of £4.7m for further investment in this activity.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) states that accepting this grant funding contributes to the MOPAC Police & Crime Plan 2017-2021 as the work this unit will undertake directly impacts upon 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 grant will be used to fund an additional 49 officers and staff for a 12 month period. In addition, the grant will fund the acquisition of additional vehicles, laptops and licences and support a digital forensics hub.

2.3. In addition to this £4.7m grant funding the Home Office has also allocated a further £1.36m funding to the Roads Police Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) function in support of County Lines.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The acceptance of the HO funding of £4,700,000 does not require any match funding by MOPAC.

3.2. If HO funding ceases in the future then the posts this grant funds would be absorbed across the MPS. County Lines remains referenced in all recent communications as a key pillar of the UK’s drug strategy and future investment.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. Under Schedule 3, paragraph 7 (1) Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) MOPAC has incidental powers to “do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of the Office.” Paragraph 7 (2) (a) provides that this includes entering into contracts and other agreements. The Met assure that these powers are sufficiently broad to permit MOPAC to enter into the grant agreement.

4.2. Para 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Consent and Delegation provides the DMPC with delegated power to approve all offers made of grant funding, and to approve business cases for revenue or capital expenditure of £500,000 and above.

4.3. Para 4.13 of the MOPAC Scheme of Consent and Delegation provides the DMPC with delegated power to approve all requests to go out to tender for contracts of £500,000 or above, or where there is a particular public interest.

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. Previous approvals for Operation Orochi have noted 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. 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 Paper MPS Op Orochi – County Lines