In a move that will strike the majority of industry leaders as nothing short of ludicrous, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) – the UK’s only central agency dedicated to fighting cyber-crime – is to undergo staffing cuts, reports The Times.

The agency is to lose up to 400 of its 4,400 staff when the Home Office unveils its policing budget this week, reveals The Times. The cuts represent yet another severe blow to the UK’s e-crime strategy, which has suffered a catalogue of setbacks during the past 18 months.

Chief of these, security commentators argue, was the dissolution of the National High Tech Crime Unit, which was officially rolled into SOCA in April 2006 after what was widely regarded as a highly successful six-year stint at the forefront of e-crime investigation.

Many organisations, including the Corporate IT Forum (Tif) and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), have since publicly criticised the move, claiming SOCA has been both unhelpful and uncommunicative toward industry.

In October, Commander Sue Wilkinson, head of e-crime at the Association of Chief Police Officers and the driving force behind the Metropolitan Police’s proposed National E-Crime Co-Ordination Unit also quit her post.

The National E-Crime Co-ordination Unit has been dogged by funding problems and its future now remains in serious doubt.

The Government also roundly disregarded many of the recommendations made by the recent Personal Internet Security report issued by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, which condemned the Government’s ‘Wild West’ approach to online security.

Lord Erroll, co-author of the report, told Information Age that there has been some pressure “behind the scenes” to ramp up the government’s e-crime effort, but the Home Office continues to drag its feet for reasons that are both financial and political.

It is thought the Government wishes to redirect resources to tackle human trafficking which it regards as more immediately pressing.

However, the Government’s effective relegation of the e-crime agenda exposes its lack of appreciation for the highly inter-connected nature of cyber and so-called ‘real world’ crime -- in particular the links between organised, financially-motivated gangs of cyber-criminals, and real-word terrorists and child predators.

The notion that the Internet facilitates crime that remains confined only to the electronic realm -- namely within people's online bank accounts -- is a dangerous fallacy that serves to perpetuate real world offences against individuals, companies, and the state itself.

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