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Mr Mackey's Blog

Hello and a very warm welcome to both the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) and to my first blog entry in my role as Business Crime lead and Private Security Portfolio holder for the National Police Chiefs Council. I thank you for visiting the website and hope that you find it informative and user friendly.

It is an exciting time to be NPCC business lead, with not only the new website, but a National Business Crime Centre twitter account and now this blog to not only test my familiarity with the latest trending technologies, but also to ensure that we reach businesses both big and small, up and down the UK. It is not just technologies that change, but crime too and therefore so must our response to it. With crimes against businesses and their staff accounting for 25% of all crime, there is no larger community for which crime impacts upon and which creates a unique opportunity to work together in partnership to combat. This is something both myself and my new dedicated national team are committed to, along with the other business leads working tirelessly in forces throughout the UK.

We are grateful for the support of all our partners and we realise this is not something we are going to achieve alone. A national centre for excellence and sharing best practice can only be realised with the will and support from our business partners, ranging from retail to hospitality and including everything from small businesses to rural enterprises.

Successful Home Office Police Transformation Funding provided the opportunity for a first National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) to be created. The necessity for the centre was identified as a result of information from Businesses who were finding that Police Forces were doing things 43 different ways. There was a need to join up the dots between police forces, security initiatives and private sector/business. The aspiration of the NBCC is to be the ‘Go to place’ and a Centre of Excellence for both big and small businesses and all Forces. The centre will be officially launched on the 19th October 2017 and I am excited to see those of you who will be in attendance at New Scotland Yard for the event. For those who will not, I hope to be able to communicate and update you on our progress through this blog. There is also the option to subscribe to the latest news and updates on the ‘contact’ page of this website.

The National Business Crime Centre will offer free support and guidance on the latest good practice. We will liaise with the wider business community at head office level and link in with private security where it exists to:

  • Improve partnerships with the business community and raise National police standards, to accurately understand and reduce the impact of crime
  • Enable businesses to target their resources more efficiently, through effective intelligence and information exchange, disrupting organised business criminality at a National level
  • Prioritising prevention, enabling businesses to protect themselves from cyber, fraud and terrorism by being a conduit of best practice and a centre of excellence supporting all businesses throughout the UK.

Although the NBCC does not lead on Counter Terrorism or Cyber Crime, we will deliver their messages nationally to businesses, similarly we will also deliver messages from other specialists and national bodies to assist the business community to drive down crime.

The focus of the centre moving forward is on;

  • Violence Reduction in businesses
  • Safeguarding
  • Supporting National Police teams
  • Disrupting organised business criminality

As I am sure you will agree, this will be a challenge but it is one the team of Georgie, Neil, Daphne and Max are relishing. They have already travelled up and down the UK to meet various business leads and ensure identification and communication with other force business leads to avoid duplication and learn about the fantastic work that is already taking place. A police event for business leads was well attended and a huge success in October and watch this space for many more events and training opportunities to come.  The dots have been identified and we are already doing all we can to join them up, so that information sharing is effective and those who target businesses for criminal purposes will be identified and brought to justice.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and  look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Kind Regards,
Craig Mackey QPM