Challenges and enabling conditions in the governance of economic crime: Insights from the UK's National Economic Crime Centre

Abstract

The National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), established in 2018, was envisioned as a multi-agency hub to coordinate the UK's response to economic crime. Using a collaborative governance lens combined with the concept of the 'superstructural node' from nodal governance theory, this paper offers an analytical account of the enabling conditions for collaborative governance in the UK's response to economic crime, with particular attention to the NECC. Drawing on 22 interviews with senior officials, the analysis examines how conditions such as problem clarity, data access, and agency alignment inform, and at times constrain, collaborative capacity. Crucially, several of those conditions are underpinned by tensions (e.g., between analytical clarity and political utility, between operational dependence and institutional independence, and between coordination authority and partner autonomy) that resist straightforward resolution and make sustained collaboration particularly difficult. These findings point to three core considerations for collaborative efforts: clarifying the problem being addressed and establishing clear prioritisation frameworks; establishing how collaboration is organised and sustained; and specifying clear accountability arrangements. Although grounded in the UK's institutional landscape, these findings speak to broader economic crime governance efforts and multi-agency crime control initiatives more widely.