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The purpose of this paper is to research how local councils in England responded to a national initiative intended to address the risk of the involvement of organised crime in local government procurement fraud. In so doing, it considers definitional issues before undertaking original research to explore how councils responded and, through in-depth interviews with three councils, what initial explanations may explain the responses. It concludes that the national initiative was insufficiently thought-through, and that councils’ responses were significantly influenced by the relevance of the threat of organised crime, financial constraints and competing priorities.

The case study involves a literature review, an analysis of official documentation, a questionnaire to local councils in the north of England and semi-structured interviews with anti-fraud practitioners in three councils in the northeast of England. The approach is to provide an analysis of the implementation of a national initiative to promote a local government response to procurement fraud by organised crime.

On the basis of original research, the paper proposes that the national initiative was insufficiently thought-through, and that councils’ responses were influenced by the relevance of the threat of organised crime, financial constraints and competing priorities.

The research looks at a national initiative and how local councils responded within the context of financial and other constraints. The research is limited in terms of the range of responses it sought, and that it only studied the experience of three local councils in detail. On the other hand, its findings support further research into the implementation of national initiatives in terms of practice on the ground.

The findings identify issues surrounding the design and implementation of national anti-fraud policies from the perspective of local government and will be of value to practitioners and academics interested in fraud, policing, organised crime, local government and policy making.

The paper is the first study in the UK on the local implementation of national strategies on procurement fraud and organised crime and raises positive and less-positive aspects of how far national strategies and intentions are addressed on the ground, with a focus on what factors may influence local implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the extent to which the “new policing of assets” has produced new assets for policing in the UK.

This is achieved by producing an estimate of both the financial benefits and costs to the public purse based upon official documentation where possible.

Asset recovery and anti‐money laundering work has produced some assets to be used for policing, but even using a conservative methodology it is unlikely to have produced a financial benefit which is much more than its costs, indeed the costs are likely to have been greater.

Many parts of the cost are estimates; therefore, researchers are encouraged to ascertain the exact costs.

Of interest to those interested in the costs of government policies and regulations, especially the regulated sector burdened by the costs of complying with the money laundering legislation.

The paper attempts to fulfill the government's desire to improve the quality of the cost‐benefit analyses of the money laundering regime.

Politicians justified the introduction of the illiberal and liberal parts of the UK's anti‐money laundering and asset recovery regime by reference to the extra‐ordinary threat posed by organised crime. This paper attempts to evaluate the extent to which the financial measures contained in the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) 2002 and the Serious and Organised Crime and Policing Act 2005 are actually used against this threat.

The objective is achieved by reference to four distinct datasets found on the use of these measures. The first consists of the regular, usually monthly, bulletins on the Proceeds of Crime produced by the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA). The second – which reveals the length of sentences given to those convicted of money laundering offences under the POCA – was gathered from the Financial Action Task Force, the Home Office and Justice Office in Scotland. The third consists of the value of the cases which had been, and which were being, dealt with by the ARA at the time the National Audit Office produced it's report on the institution. The fourth is the number of financial reporting orders which have been imposed upon criminals, follows the discovery of an earlier version whilst examining parliamentary records.

The triangulated results suggest that the POCA powers – originally used by use against organised crime – were used against this alleged threat only on a small minority and number of occasions.

This infrequent use raises major questions of either the ability of the policing agencies including the Serious and Organised Crime Agency to take on organised crime and/or the credibility of those who exaggerated a threat of organised crime to justify the (often illiberal) powers.

This paper questions whether the POCA will achieve one of its original aims. It will interest politicians and practitioners concerned with the combating of organised crime and/or anti‐money laundering and asset recovery as well as criminologists and those interested in civil liberties.

Few articles have been published on counter‐terrorist finance (CTF) policies in the UK and fewer still have attempted to evaluate their effectiveness. This paper seeks to examine both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the UK's CTF policies from open‐source materials and in doing so considers the credibility of many of the claims by those who have attempted to evaluate their effectiveness in light of the data gathered.

The paper presents an analysis of the UK's CTF regime.

There have been just over 100 convictions under terrorism legislation offence in Great Britain alone since 11 September 2001 resulting in at least ten individuals being convicted of a CTF offence. In terms of assets frozen or seized, Robinson appears to have a point when he argued that: “when you look closely at those frozen assets, you discover that most of them have been unfrozen”, given the tens of millions of pounds returned to the Afghan Government.

This paper will be of interest to academics, politicians, practitioners interested in the use of CTF policies.

Asset recovery and the incentivisation of law enforcement is a theme within both the official and critical discourses on anti‐money laundering and asset recovery. This paper attempts to find out whether this so‐called “new policing of assets” in the UK has produced new assets for policing.

The aim is achieved by producing an estimate for the costs to private companies and public authorities as well as an estimate of the financial benefits, both of which challenge the costs and benefits stated in previous work on the issue.

In doing this work it points out the difficulty of producing such costings and questions whether the regime justifies the compliance costs imposed.

The paper contributes to the debate about improving the quality of cost‐benefit analyses of the money laundering regime.

Among the events of National Library Week was the opening of the new Croydon Central Library. Describes the architecture of the building. The Library was opened by Peter Brooke, Secretary of State at the Department of National Heritage, who used the occasion to explain Government policy on public libraries. Reproduces this speech, clarifies his comments and to some extent corrects earlier comments made by Iain Sproat, whose speech is also outlined.

This paper aims to raise, and consider, first-order questions about the United Kingdom’s anti-money laundering (AML) regime.

The paper contrasts the original rationale for introducing AML and asset recovery to the UK with data on the assets recovered from organised crime and those involved in drug trafficking. It does this by analysing historical and contemporaneous literature – both official and academic.

When assessed against its original aims of combating drugs and organised crime, the tentative conclusion is that the UK’s AML system does not appear to be worth the candle.

While based upon publicly available information that is far from ideal, the analysis raises credible questions as to whether the UK’s AML regime is worthwhile and whether it could be done differently.

Raises the question of whether the impact of the AML regime could be made worthwhile by investing a great deal more in those law enforcement agencies that use the suspicious activity reporting regime. It also raises the question as to whether the AML regime could be re-purposed to achieve aims that are different from the original.

Given the financial costs, which run into billions of pounds, and the fact that the regime has failed to have a significant impact on the level of drug trafficking or the revenue of organised criminals, the paper raises questions as to when the policy can be re-designed or abandoned.

While most other analytical work simply makes suggestions as to how to improve the number of inputs into the AML system, this paper provides a critical analysis of the costs and benefits of the AML regime in the UK.

The purpose of this paper is to assert that the exclusive use of predicate offence as a means of proving money laundering is an inadequate response to the level of threat presented by the crime. It aims to promote the concept of “irresistible inference” from UK case law as a basis for establishing international consensus that this provides an alternative and possibly more effective means of prosecuting the crime.

The paper considers academic research into the incidence of money laundering and the effectiveness of anti‐money laundering measures; it considers the efficacy of current UK legislation on money laundering; assesses legal views on recent developments in UK case law relating to the concept of “irresistible inference”; identifies what “irresistible inference” looks like and asserts its practical value as an alternative basis for proving criminality of funds in money laundering prosecutions.

An effective international response to the increasing threat to international institutions posed by money laundering requires development of new approaches to proving criminality of funds. The use of irresistible inference as an alternative to predicate offence, however, requires development of the international understanding of what it looks like in order that relevant policy makers and legal decision makers can deploy it with confidence so that it is able to make the significant contribution to the international effort against money laundering it is capable of.

To facilitate the necessary international consensus, it may be necessary in some jurisdictions to amend legislation where it currently relies on predicate offence for the prosecution of money laundering cases.

A failure to effectively combat international money laundering implies acceptance of an attitude of complacency in the face of increasing exposure to levels of threat in the form of political and social corruption, organized crime and terrorism that ought to be unacceptable to the international community.

International acceptance of “irresistible inference” as a means of proving criminality in money laundering cases would deliver a radically more hostile environment for international money launderers. This paper is designed to open up thinking along these lines across international borders.

The article aims to describe the role of asset recovery in combating drug and people trafficking within the UK and the different means by which the proceeds of crime can be taken away from such organised criminals.

The author uses official data on asset recovery to critically analyse both the policing of drug trafficking in the UK and the official discourse on the extent, value and costs to the country of the trafficking of women for sex by organised crime.

The article raises important questions about the credibility of the official estimates of the scale of drug trafficking by organised crime and/or the management and funding of those tasked with policing it within the UK.

The work provides either a more accurate guide on the extent, value and costs to the country of the trafficking of women for sex or a much needed antithesis to the official discourse on the topic.

The purpose of this article is to report on case study research conducted in a German hospital and describe the implications that the “Management by walking about” approach had on healthcare employees. “Management by walking about” is widely seen as one of the favoured procedures for increasing employee commitment and shared understanding as well as supporting high trust work relations.

This case study set out to examine the actual labour processes and the concrete experiences of healthcare employees behind the “Management by walking about” approach in a German hospital. This was achieved by means of a six month field study of day‐to‐day life in the hospital's nursing division.

In this case study, the popular initiative of “Management by walking about” was used as a means of managerial control and, as such, the internal promotion of soaring values and path‐finding visions was met with both scepticism and cynicism.

Pre‐commitment and motivation levels were high among healthcare employees, they were passionate about their healthcare work and they actively engaged in open communication and organisational development. But all this had little to do with “Management by walking about”, and its implications raise questions about its influence on high trust work relations more generally.

The paper concludes that a more critical analysis is necessary to challenge the way in which “Management by walking about” is examined by healthcare management academics and practitioners.