Top copper Lynne Owens to lead National Crime Agency

Re: National Crime Agency

The NCA is simply the new name for the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA); the re-branding happened in 2013. The organization isn't new, however, and while I'm sure bits of it are unnecessary (pretty much guaranteed once you get above a certain number of employees), it specialises in the types of crime that tend to stretch beyond the capabilities of a particular force - child porn, for example, or human trafficking. There's a fair amount of both happening across the country, but not enough in any one particular area that an individual police force can really develop specialist teams for it (with some exceptions, of course - the Met being the obvious one).