Britain’s police force needs to better manage its talent and work with the private sector on initiatives to stop economic crime, according to Nik Adams, assistant commissioner with the City of London Police.

Speaking at UK Finance’s Economic Crime Congress, Adams said that policing has been concerned about losing people to the private sector for some time.

“Whilst we cannot afford financially to create a pipeline of technical skills going into the private sector, we have got to work out how to make that sustainable, but also not be scared about people going off because of the huge benefits that sharing skills creates,” he added. “I’ve seen several individuals leaving policing, going to work in the private sector who can then shape and influence the development of some great tools.”

Adams said that talent joining private organisations often work on projects which provide the police force with tech solutions that they do not have the resources to develop themselves and this allows the force to focus on policing.

“We’ve been great at doing stuff over the years where we have brought young people into the organisation for work experience and development programmes, but what we are rubbish at doing is giving them come currencies at the end of that,” Adams added. “We give them skills and then they go off.”

Adams said that there should be “more sustainable pipelines” but warned that this is constricted by budgets and the inability to hold vacancies.

He suggested that policing needed a talent pool, similar to that run by GCHQ, which people enter on finishing their studies and can then find a permanent route into the organisation.

Speaking at the Congress, Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that many organisations are short on specialised technology analysts which hinders the fight against economic crime.

“People are making money from tech before it hits the ground and we are struggling to react,” he added. “Tech is part of the solution and we are trying to proactively identify how to use it at the FCA – how do we analyse it and join the dots?”

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