Rishi Sunak allocates funds for UK’s Counter Terrorism Operations Centre

 UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced to set aside millions of pounds to establish a world-leading Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC) based in London

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced to set aside millions of pounds to establish a world-leading Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC) based in London. As part of a Spending Review for the next year’s budgetary plans tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, the finance minister said he would allocate an additional 400 million pound to help recruit 20,000 more police officers by 2023, with 6,000 new officers in 2021-22; 63 million pound to tackle economic crime; and 337 million pound extra funding for the criminal justice system, which will include the new CTOC — expected to be fully operational within five years.

“Our police and intelligence agencies do an extraordinary job every day to protect us all from terrorist activity, Rishi Sunak said. “Bringing these partners together to form a world-leading operations centre will enable them to work more collaboratively to disrupt threats allowing the government to deliver on its first and foremost duty to keep the public safe,” he said.

“We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our police, intelligence agencies and criminal justice system who work tirelessly every single day to keep us safe from terrorism. This world-leading new centre will fully integrate their wealth of knowledge and expertise to ensure that we are responding to the range of threats this nation faces as quickly and effectively as possible,” added UK Home Secretary Priti Patel. Scotland Yard has welcomed Sunak’s announcement of setting up of the state-of-the-art facility, which would coordinate expertise and resources, including combatting hostile state activity and organised crime..