Accountability

SOCA is accountable to the Home Secretary and, through the Home Secretary, to Parliament. This relationship is detailed in legislation – the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.

Strategic priorities

The Home Secretary, in consultation with the devolved administrations, sets SOCA’s strategic priorities.

Find out more about our strategic priorities

Annual Plan

We publish an Annual Plan where we detail how we will deliver these priorities, taking into account our available resources.

Read our Annual Plan (1.12 MB PDF)

Decision-making

The Director General of SOCA has operational independence to decide which operations we carry out and how. The Director General is accountable to the SOCA Board.

For more details, see our structure

Annual Report

SOCA publishes an Annual Report detailing the extent to which the activities described in the Annual Plan have been delivered. The Home Secretary lays this report before Parliament and Scottish Ministers lay a copy before the Scottish Parliament.

Read our Annual Report (7.31 mb PDF)

Parliamentary scrutiny

As part of the process of accountability, SOCA is scrutinised by MPs throughout the year. The Chair and the Director General appear before the Home Affairs Select Committee regularly.

The Director General and other SOCA officers appear before and give written evidence to other Parliamentary Committees. Through the Home Secretary, MPs are able to ask Parliamentary Questions about SOCA and the responses to these are published in Hansard.

Have a look at the Home Affairs Select Committee web page

Where possible we have included downloadable files in Adobe PDF format. To view these files you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader which you can download free from Adobe’s website: