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The UK government published proposals to overhaul policing by creating a National Police Service—positioned as an “FBI-like” body—to centralize investigations into cybercrime, fraud, and other internet-enabled offenses that increasingly cross local and national boundaries. The plan would shift responsibility for serious, non-local crimes away from the current model of dozens of territorial forces in England and Wales and would reportedly merge the National Crime Agency (NCA) into the new structure; ministers argue the existing system is no longer fit for purpose as crime becomes more digitally enabled.
Officials cited the scale of the problem—claiming roughly 90% of crime now has a digital element and that fraud accounts for about 44% of recorded offenses—and framed the proposal as the most significant reform of British policing in nearly 200 years, with a multi-year transition rather than an immediate reorganization. Separately, UK national security leaders warned in Parliament that resilience alone may be insufficient against state-backed cyber and hybrid threats (including critical infrastructure sabotage and disinformation), arguing the UK needs credible offensive deterrence to impose costs on hostile actors, alongside defensive investment and clearer accounting of NATO-aligned security spending commitments.
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The Home Office plan included £115 million over three years for a National Centre for AI in Policing and said legislation and oversight would govern AI and facial recognition use. It also said an independent review due in summer 2026 would help determine how regional and national specialist units, including cyber and fraud teams, would be merged into the new service.
As part of the restructuring proposal, the government said the National Crime Agency would be folded into the new National Police Service. The change is intended to strengthen national coordination and intelligence sharing for cybercrime and fraud investigations.
The British government proposed a major policing overhaul to centralize the response to cybercrime, fraud, and other internet-enabled offenses that increasingly cross geographic boundaries. The plan would create a National Police Service with command authority over serious, non-local crimes now handled across separate territorial forces.
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The UK government has publicly acknowledged that its longstanding cybersecurity policies for the public sector have failed, leaving critical services and departments vulnerable to cyberattacks. In response, officials have announced a sweeping reset with the introduction of the Government Cyber Action Plan, backed by over £210 million in new funding. The plan establishes a dedicated Government Cyber Unit, sets minimum security standards, and mandates robust incident response capabilities across all departments. This overhaul comes after years of fragmented accountability and recurring cyber incidents, including high-profile attacks on agencies such as the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), which suffered a major breach that went undetected for months despite significant prior investment in security improvements. The Public Accounts Committee has criticized the Ministry of Justice for its handling of the LAA cyberattack, revealing that despite £50 million spent on security, the agency failed to detect the intrusion for four months and delayed taking affected servers offline. The government’s new strategy aims to address these systemic weaknesses by improving risk visibility, enforcing stricter standards, and banning ransom payments by public-sector organizations. The action plan is positioned as a radical shift to protect essential services, restore public trust, and prevent future incidents that could disrupt healthcare, legal, and other critical infrastructure.
Jun 29, 2026
The UK unveiled a national fraud strategy that shifts more responsibility for stopping scams onto telecom providers, technology platforms, and financial firms, backed by a new **Online Crime Centre** with more than **£30 million** to coordinate the National Crime Agency, GCHQ, police, and private-sector partners. The plan focuses on disrupting fraud infrastructure upstream by blocking scam texts, freezing accounts, and removing fraudulent online profiles, while replacing Action Fraud with a new **Report Fraud** system and pursuing a national capability to trace scam calls across networks. The broader UK push builds on earlier action to ban illegitimate **SIM farms**, a tool used to send mass scam texts and create large numbers of verified accounts, with operators already reporting more than **1 billion** suspected scam messages blocked since 2023.
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House of Lords peers proposed amendments to the UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill that would make senior executives personally civilly liable for serious cybersecurity failures. The government rejected the measure, citing proposed penalties of up to **£17 million or 4% of annual turnover** and forthcoming board-governance requirements. Peers also warned that the bill's 24-hour incident-notification and 72-hour detailed-reporting deadlines could drive defensive over-reporting, while the government said the measures are needed to modernize the NIS Regulations 2018 and enable NCSC response. Liberal Democrat peer Lord Tim Clement-Jones also sought emergency powers for the government to deactivate dangerous AI systems and, in national-security emergencies, shut down data centers. He framed the AI “kill switch” as a last-resort control against autonomous systems compromising critical national infrastructure, including misuse by state-backed actors or ransomware groups. Industry voices supported emergency controls in principle but cautioned that the UK's dependence on foreign technology suppliers would limit their practical effectiveness without greater sovereign technology capacity and procurement reform.
Sep 10, 2026