Police officers fighting organised crime are urging local authorities to back an initiative to stop a fraud involving stolen plant they say is costing millions of pounds in public money.
Theft of construction plant and equipment costs up to a £1bn a year, police researchers have estimated. Councils and private sector clients were picking up the bill, because complacent contractors built in the cost into their tenders, according to Ian Elliott, industry liaison officer in the Metropolitan Police’s serious crimes directorate.
Last week, Elliott briefed a meeting of the London Technical Advisors Group, urging boroughs to make membership of a new national scheme for marking and tracing plant and equipment a condition of contract.
A Home Office task force – the Plant Theft Action Group – is about to award a data-handling contract for the scheme, which launches in January, together with a new police unit dedicated to catching the highly-specialised criminal plant gangs.
The Olympic Delivery Authority is the first public body to endorse it, and will write the requirement into construction contracts for facilities and infrastructure for 2012. It fears plant theft could hit the massive construction programme in London.
Elliott wants local government to follow suit. ‘The industry has been very slow to take theft seriously,’ he said, with many companies deterred by the recovery fees charged under an existing voluntary plant-registration scheme. The new scheme’s effectiveness would be assured if councils made membership a condition of contract, he stressed. The scale of plant theft was appalling, LoTAG chair, Joe Weiss, agreed. ‘The 2012 Olympics sites will provide rich pickings for the gangs.
‘Hopefully, we can take this forward,’ he added. Council taxpayers were already effectively paying a premium to the criminal underworld, and suffering greater disruption since works took longer as plant theft became an epidemic. ‘We need to ensure our contract terms and conditions are fit for purpose.’
The diffuse ownership of plant among main and subcontractors, hirers and finance companies is blamed for the industry’s complacency, as theft costs are lost in site insurance, or passed on.
A new excavator costs more than a Rolls Royce, yet a single key will start all a manufacturer’s machines, which usually lack verifiable markings. Police who stopped a low-loader had no way of checking the legitimacy of its cargo, said Elliott.
Roof markings with a unique registration number, A4-size tamper-proof stickers, and other security features will become standard. The chosen data handler will provide logbooks, log stolen plant on the police computer, and operate a 24-hour hotline for police checks. Registration is expected to cost £50 per machine.
The Home Office is seeking £250,000 match-funding from the industry for the new police unit.