The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a nationwide policing body with operational powers.
Established in 2013, it is the successor organisation for several other policing bodies such as the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the National Crime Squad and the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. It is a core participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry as it has an interest in undercover policing itself.
While it has made submissions to the Inquiry on some issues, its activity to date in the Inquiry has been minimal. It wrote in its opening statement to Tranche 1:
14. Moreover:
a. The focus of the undercover work carried out by the NCA is not and has never been on the infiltration of political, social and environmental activist groups. The NCA understands that the same is true of the undercover work conducted by the RCS, the NCS and SOCA.
b. The NCA has never had a policy that involved encouraging undercover officers to use the identities of deceased children when creating their legend identities. Nor is the NCA aware of any such policy being in place within the RCS, the NCS or SOCA.
15. Rather, the NCA’s interest in this Inquiry relates to any broader examination that the Inquiry may undertake of historic undercover policing, and, in particular, to Module 3 of the Inquiry in which the Inquiry will consider current undercover policing practices and how undercover policing in this country should be conducted in the future.
17. ...[T]he NCA does have an interest in evidence to be given during those modules by a small number of officers who have been employed by the NCA or its precursors and who deployed within NPOIU operations.
One of the NPOIU (National Public Order Intelligence Unit) undercover officers it has an interest in is EN51, for whom it supplied a risk assessment.