On The Road with the NBCC Team in July 2026
July has been another productive month for the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) team. Despite the summer holiday period and annual leave across the sector, our focus has remained on supporting retailers, partners and communities through collaboration, crime prevention and meaningful engagement.
Across the month, the team has continued to contribute to national initiatives, share best practice and provide practical advice and support to retailers of all sizes. This work helps ensure a consistent and coordinated approach to reducing crime, improving safety and delivering the ambitions of the Tackling Retail Crime Together strategy.
At the beginning of the month, Lisa chaired a Home Office subgroup bringing together retailers, technology providers and key stakeholders to explore future opportunities for direct reporting solutions. The discussions focused on how technology and partnership working can help create more effective and accessible ways for businesses to report incidents, share information and support investigations.
The entire NBCC team attended the Retail Crime Advisory Group meeting in the City of London. The event brought together representatives from retail, security providers, Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), Business Crime Reduction Partnerships (BCRPs) and UK Policing. As the Tackling Retail Crime Together strategy approaches its first anniversary, attendees reviewed progress, shared learning and discussed priorities for the year ahead. Members of the NBCC team provided updates on the various strands showing the work now taking place at pace designed to improve safety, support businesses and build stronger partnerships across the retail landscape.
Titus attended the Metropolitan Police and British Retail Consortium Roundtable with senior retail leaders. The event provided an opportunity to discuss emerging challenges, share insights and highlight the collaborative work taking place to address retail crime and associated harms. Meetings such as these are vital in ensuring that strategic decision-makers remain connected to operational realities and can contribute to long-term solutions.
Titus attended the Hertfordshire Against Retail Crime Forum. These regional forums play an important role in identifying effective local initiatives, enabling good practice to be shared across the country and ensuring that local experiences inform national approaches.
Rach and Titus also attended the National Acquisitive Crime Conference, providing opportunities to engage with partners, learn about innovative crime prevention approaches and contribute to wider discussions around business crime reduction. Titus subsequently spoke at the National Cycle Crime Conference in his capacity as the National Police Lead for Cycle Crime, sharing insights on prevention, partnership working and offender disruption.
As retail continues to evolve in an increasingly digital environment, understanding cyber security risks remains essential. During July, Titus attended the City Forum 2026 Cyber Security Summit in London, gaining insight into emerging threats, technological developments and opportunities to strengthen resilience across the retail sector.
Towards the end of the month, Rach and Titus worked closely with a major retailer to deliver a bespoke training programme focused on preventing internal and logistics-related theft. Through targeted training and collaborative problem-solving, the programme aimed to strengthen organisational resilience, improve awareness and support the retailer's wider crime prevention objectives.
One of the highlights of the month has been the recruitment of our new undergraduate placement student. We interviewed a highly impressive group of candidates, demonstrating the growing interest in crime prevention, community safety and partnership working.
We are delighted to have selected a successful candidate who will join the team in September. Over the coming year, she will contribute to a variety of projects while developing her professional skills and gaining valuable experience in supporting safer businesses and communities. We look forward to introducing her formally in a future newsletter.
As we move into August, the NBCC remains committed to working alongside retailers, policing, local partnerships and communities to prevent crime and create safer environments for colleagues, customers and businesses alike. Through collaboration, innovation and shared learning, we continue to support the retail sector in tackling challenges and building resilience for the future.
