McQuillan defends assets agency

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The head of the Assets Recovery Agency has rejected criticism of its performance by a Commons committee.

A Public Accounts Committee report criticised the agency for focusing on recovering assets by court action, rather than negotiating settlements.

So far this year in Northern Ireland, the ARA has frozen over £4m of assets, and seized or settled over half of it.

Alan McQuillan said the agency did not want to offer criminals "firesale deals".

The committee criticised the agency for concentrating its efforts on recovering the full value of criminals' illegal assets by court action, rather than negotiating settlements which left them with some of their gains.

Mr McQuillan said: "It would be very easy for us to offer firesale prices for criminals.

"But how much to people really want me to leave drug dealers, pimps, pornography dealers - how much to people really want me to leave them with.

"If we can take them on to court or push them into a settlement that takes much longer, but gets a much higher return."

Alan McQuillan has said many criticisms have been addressed

Mr McQuillan said it was taking longer to get cases through court that originally envisaged - about three years in England and about four in Northern Ireland.

The agency is due to be disbanded from April next year and its duties transferred to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

The Commons committee said the Home Office had set "unachievable delivery aims for" the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA), the Commons public accounts committee added.

It was revealed earlier this year that the ARA had cost £65m over four years, but seized assets worth £23m.

"We actually reached the turning point last year where we recovered more than the base funding we get from the Treasury each year," Mr McQuillan said.

"We were forecast to get to that point a year before, it was a year late."