To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the total operational cost of the suspicious activity reports regime has been since it was created; and how much was spent on capital establishment costs; (182158)

Suspicious activity reports (SARs) are submitted to the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) in the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). £12,792.502 has been spent on the operation of the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) since April 2006, when the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) assumed responsibility for the UKFIU. In 2007 £7,305,511 was spent on the operation of the UKFIU. This includes the running costs of the SARs transformation project. This is not contained within the FIU, but is an IT-enabled business change project entirely focused on improving the SARs regime. In addition, the overhead charge associated with running estates and IT for the UKFIU is currently around £1,200,000 per year.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much money has been collected through the suspicious activity reports regime since its creation. (182214)

SARs make a contribution to a range of outcomes including asset recovery but also harm reduction, the building of intelligence on criminals and terrorists, and criminal convictions. In relation to terrorism, the information contained in SARs has been used to assist in the prevention of further terrorist activity, through being linked to ongoing inquiries, and regularly adds valuable new information.

Because the information contained in SARs is one of many inputs to these results it is not possible to quantify the value of these in terms of amounts of criminal assets recovered. Nor would this cover the full range of benefits.