Electronic crime is to have its own business unit within the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) for the first time.

At the last estimate, e-crime was costing the UK economy £2.5bn a year, and until now it has been dealt with by Acpo as just one part of business crime.

But the growing threat means law enforcement is taking it more seriously, said Charlie McMurdie, head of the Metropolitan Police computer crime unit.

“E-crime is moving up the interest list,” she said. “And this move will give those tackling it better access to Acpo facilities.”

It is not yet clear how the new structure will work or what extra resources will be available, but the role of the organisation’s lead on cyber crime ­ vacant since the departure before Christmas of Sue Wilkinson ­ is expected to be filled next month.

How far the reshuffle will successfully focus attention on e-crime remains to be seen, according to IT security expert Professor Peter Sommer, at the London School of Economics.

“The key question here is how much extra funding will actually be available?” he said.
The changes at Acpo are part of a wider change of focus within police forces to take e-crime more seriously.

In October last year, HM Inspector of Constabularies’ guidelines were changed to assess the 43 local forces on their e-crime capabilities for the first time.

Previously there had been no motivation for chief constables to spend money tackling the issue.

And a Computing investigation last year found that less than half of forces have more than five staff in their high-tech crime units, most of which deal only with paedophile investigations.

Discussions are also under way over funding of a unit at the Met to co- ordinate local forces’ responses to e-crime. The group would fill the gap left by the disbanding of the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit in April 2006.