The Serious Crime Bill will introduce a package of new powers that will strengthen and improve the ability of law enforcement agencies to tackle and prevent serious crime. Preventing serious crime reduces the harm to society caused by such crime.
The measures will:
Establish a new civil serious crime prevention order to prevent serious crime by individuals or organisations by imposing conditions on them.
Merge the main functions of the Assets Recovery Agency into the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and improve the proceeds of crime legislation.
Establish new criminal offences of encouraging or assisting a criminal offence with intent, or encouraging or assisting a criminal offence, or one or more offences, believing that an offence will be committed.
Further develop data-sharing within the public sector, and between the private and public sectors, to improve the detection and prevention of fraud. The Bill also places the Audit Commission's National Fraud Initiative on a statutory footing and expands its scope to allow voluntary participation by bodies not currently audited by the Audit Commission.
Evolve our ability to combat serious and organised tax crime by making HM Revenue and Customs' existing surveillance powers available against a wider range of criminal tax activity.
