UK allocates Funds for Counter Terrorism Operations Centre

The Chancellor of United Kingdom (UK), Rishi Sunak, has announced to allocate millions of pounds funds to establish a Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC) that is based in London.

Highlights

•  The funds have been allocated  as part of a Spending Review for the next year’s budgetary plans.
• During the session, the finance minister also allocated an additional 400 million pound so as to recruit 20,000 more police officers by 2023.
• The funds would also be utilized to recruit 6,000 new officers in 2021-22.
• Further, 63 million pound have been allocated to tackle economic crime.
•  337 million pound have been allocated to the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system will include the new CTOC.
• The new CTOC is expected to be fully operation within five years,

Significance of the CTOC

The newly set up Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC) will bring the partners together in order to form a world-leading operations centre. The operation centre will enable the partners to work collaboratively to disrupt the threats. This, in turn, will allow the government to keep the public safe which is the first and foremost duty of the government.

Why CTOC has been developed?

The need of the development of the CTOC felt after a series of terrorist attacks in 2017 in the United Kingdom. The attack has killed 36 people and caused injury and life-changing impacts to others. Further, there have been rise in the terrorism threat level to Severe in the light of broadening threat environment.

Function of CTOC

The CTOC  will enable the co-location of the counter-terrorism (CT) policing, intelligence agencies, and the criminal justice system. It will also enable the co-location of the other government agencies that are focused on tackling the threat from terrorism. The CTOC would install smart working practices and cultures and will boost the innovation with new forms of collaboration.