Section 2 – Duty to establish and maintain the Agency
9.This section places a duty on the Authority to establish and maintain an organisation to be known as the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (“the Agency”) which will replace the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA).
10.Subsection (2) sets out the core functions of the Agency. These are to prevent and detect serious organised crime, to contribute to the reduction of such crime and to the mitigation of its consequences and to gather, store and analyse information in connection with the above. In effect the purpose of the Agency is to reduce serious organised crime and the harm it causes. The function of mitigating the consequences of serious organised crime acknowledges that the prosecution of organised criminals is only one of the strategies that may be employed to tackle organised criminality.
11.Sub-section (3) enables the Agency to share, with specified organisations, information which it has gathered and stored for the purposes of carrying out its core functions. The specified organisations include other UK police forces, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and other law enforcement agencies.