24
IPCO Annual Report 2017
Statistics of use of powers
4.6
Directed surveillance is frequently deployed as an investigative tool by law enforcement
agencies but there has otherwise been a marked reduction in its use, particularly by local
government and the Fire Service. There may be a number of reasons for this, including
statutory change17 and increased collaboration with local policing teams, but budget
constraints are also likely to have played a part. I am concerned that there may come a point
in the near future when there will be public anxiety that some of the relevant authorities are
failing to make proper use of this important technique to investigate and prosecute crime.
4.7
For the intelligence agencies, most of the surveillance activity we oversee is conducted by
MI5 under a combination of specific and thematic directed surveillance authorisations and
intrusive surveillance warrants.
4.8
On an annualised basis, 186 intrusive surveillance authorisations were granted for Law
Enforcement in the period 1 April to 31 Decem ber 201718 This is a similar number (when
‘annualised’ to 248 authorisations) to the previous 12-month period, but it remains
significantly lower than the average of 400 authorisations per year seen regularly
before 2014.
Fig. 3 Intrusive Surveillance Authorisations over the last 10 years (excluding UKIC)
2007-2008
2008-2009
2009-2010
2010-2011
2011-2012
2012-2013
2013-2014
2014-2015
2015-2016
2016-2017
(annualised figure) 2017-
0
100
200
300
400
500
17 The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 limited the levels of criminality for which the powers are available to local authorities in England
and Wales, and introduced the need for a magistrate’s approval of the activity.
18 See the chapter above on CHIS in which we have explained the approach to collecting statistics for this period.