Transparency data

Project ADDER programme data: January 2021 to March 2025

Updated 17 December 2025

Applies to England and Wales

This note provides a summary of the activity of the Project ADDER programme from its launch in November 2020 to its closure in March 2025.

Project ADDER

Project Addiction, Diversion, Disruption, Enforcement and Recovery (Project ADDER thereafter) was a programme led by the Home Office and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), with support from other Government departments.

The aims of the programme were to reduce drug-related offending, drug deaths and drug use. Project ADDER combined co-ordinated law enforcement activity, alongside expanded diversionary programmes, enhanced treatment and recovery provisions (including housing and employment support). Project ADDER committed a total of £69 million of investment over five years from 20/21 to 24/25.  This includes just over £34 million worth of funding for the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.

The five original local Project ADDER pilot areas were Blackpool, Hastings, Middlesbrough, Norwich and Swansea Bay. Building on the Project ADDER model, the previous Government announced an expansion of the programme in July 2021, to include Bristol, Newcastle, Wakefield, two London boroughs (Hackney and Tower Hamlets), and three local authorities in Liverpool City Region (Knowsley, Liverpool City and Wirral).

The Project ADDER programme closed as planned in March 2025. It is now for partners to sustain the activity, which is agreed and coordinated through local Combating Drugs Partnerships. 

Project ADDER programme monitoring data

To aid ongoing monitoring, management data was collected from Project ADDER and Accelerator-funded locations. Data collection ended with closure of the programme in March 2025 and no further data will be published.

Table 1 contains monitoring data from January 2021 up to closure of the programme in March 2025.  

The data has been quality assured by Project ADDER and Accelerator areas, and may be subject to change. All data is reflective of wider activity in each area and therefore changes over time cannot be directly attributed to Project ADDER.  

Table 1: Project ADDER monitoring data for the period January 2021 to March 2025^{[footnote 1]}

Self-reported management data

	Jan to Mar 2021[footnote 2]	Apr to Jun 2021	Jul to Sep 2021	Oct to Dec 2021	Jan to Mar 2022	Apr to Jun 2022	Jul to Sep 2022	Oct to Dec 2022	Jan to Mar 2023	Apr to Jun 2023	Jul to Sep 2023	Oct to Dec 2023	Jan to Mar 2024	Apr to Jun 2024	Jul to Sep 2024	Oct to Dec 2024	Jan to Mar 2025
Organised Crime Group (OCG) disruptions[footnote 3]	73	152	199	214	284	454	498	502	743	678	761	705	1,246	704	1,861	2,351	2,183
Cash seized, £[footnote 4]	151,843	815,782	986,115	1,597,220	1,141,842	1,144,272	1,243,367	1,346,142	1,391,953	868,603	831,119	1,272,425	919,570	1,723,532	1,791,223	1,182,277	2,208,424
Arrests[footnote 5]	954	2,413	3,510	3,307	3,655	3,215	3,626	2,799	2,474	2,987	3,186	2,964	2,339	2,267	2,715	2,856	2,796

Police recorded crime data

	Jan to Mar 2021[footnote 2]	Apr to Jun 2021	Jul to Sep 2021	Oct to Dec 2021	Jan to Mar 2022	Apr to Jun 2022	Jul to Sep 2022	Oct to Dec 2022	Jan to Mar 2023	Apr to Jun 2023	Jul to Sep 2023	Oct to Dec 2023	Jan to Mar 2024	Apr to Jun 2024	Jul to Sep 2024	Oct to Dec 2024	Jan to Mar 2025
Drug trafficking offences	272	948	892	965	958	967	1,013	1,043	1,135	1,194	1,108	1,109	1,044	1,097	1,083	1,269	1,684
Drug trafficking charges	106	571	447	538	609	528	466	549	515	445	480	448	491	416	461	496	543
Drug possession offences	744	4,172	3,773	3,632	4,116	4,069	3,921	3,601	3,657	3,380	3,727	3,390	3,748	3,775	4,162	3,967	4,482
Drug possession charges	218	963	932	851	972	888	923	942	1,001	937	977	1,010	1,061	1,076	1,034	1,147	1,322
Possession of weapons offences	212	876	885	836	912	940	1,044	882	915	1,033	953	889	902	998	931	879	879
Possession of weapons charges	95	345	371	344	429	371	428	381	392	382	430	384	421	388	417	416	413
Out of Court Disposals: Community resolutions for drug possession offences	36	1,045	913	1,008	1,387	1,797	1,555	1,467	1,496	1,290	1,494	1,370	1,415	1,416	1,840	2,122	2,062

Summary of information

The figures in Table 1 show that from January 2021 to March 2025, across Project ADDER and Accelerator areas there were:

• 13,608 OCG disruptions
• £20.6 million of cash seized
• 48,063 arrests
• 17,781 drug trafficking offences
• 8,109 drug trafficking charges
• 62,316 drug possession offences
• 16,254 drug possession charges
• 14,966 possession of weapons offences
• 6,407 possession of weapons charges
• 23,713 out of court disposals: community resolutions for drug possession offences

In addition, data from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) shows that between January 2021 and March 2023, 4,966 people in drug treatment benefited from Project ADDER. From April 2023, this data is no longer captured on the NDTMS and can therefore not be reported.

Definitions

Arrests

Includes drug possession, drug trafficking and weapons arrests.

Community resolutions

These are a non-statutory disposal and a type of Out of Court Disposals, which can include elements of restorative justice. They are a method of dealing with an offender for a lower-level crime when the offender accepts responsibility for offending behaviour. In line with College of Policing guidance they ought to include an intervention with a rehabilitative and/or restorative effect.

Drug treatment intervention by outreach workers

This refers to the number of individuals not currently in treatment whom Project ADDER and Accelerator areas had meaningful contact with. Further drug treatment access involves providing specific information about access and/or motivational discussions to attempt to move an individual towards considering or actually accessing: treatment and/or provision of specific harm minimisation information (e.g., where needle exchange or naloxone providing services are); advice (e.g., safer injecting practices); resources (e.g. Naloxone itself or needle exchange items); or service information (e.g. opening hours, locations or service areas or satellites for harm minimisation services).

Naloxone kits distributed outside of treatment services

The number of naloxone kits distributed in the community (including via police).

Out of Court Disposals (OOCDs)

A method of resolving an investigation for offenders of low-level crime and anti-social behaviour, when the offender is known and admits the offence. An OOCD can only be administered by the police in limited circumstances, without having to take the matter to court.  

Organised Crime Group (OCG) disruptions

A disruptive impact on the capability of the OCG, individual or vulnerability. Total includes major, moderate and minor drug OCG disruptions.

National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS)

NDTMS is an Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) dataset covering data from about 600 areas providing structured substance misuse interventions, covering every local authority in England. See here for more information on the NDTMS.

Police Recorded Crime (PRC)

PRC is a Home Office dataset covering offences committed in England and Wales. PRC Official Statistics are regularly published. See here for details of how offences are classified and counted.

Police Recorded Crime (PRC) Outcomes

Outcomes, such as charges and community resolutions, are counted by the date at which an outcome is applied. This can be a different (later) date than the time of the offence. More details on crime outcomes can be found here.

Safeguarding interventions

Total numbers referred into diversionary / safeguarding projects or pathways, aimed at vulnerable people, including those involved in county lines and criminal exploitation.

1. Lags in data processing mean not all activity is recorded within the timeframe it took place. For example, some OCG disruptions will not be processed in time to be recorded in the latest data returned from areas to the Home Office. Areas may retrospectively update their previous data returns to account for this. Where this is the case, historic data has been updated in Table 1. ↩

2. January to March 2021 data includes original 5 Project ADDER areas only. Data for Accelerator project areas covers the period April 2021 onwards due to later mobilisation in these areas. The increase from July to September 2021 onwards is partly due to Merseyside providing data for the first time in July 2021. Therefore, year on year comparisons for enforcement metrics should be based on data July to September 2021 onwards. ↩ ↩²

3. Cash seized data excludes ADDER areas in Middlesbrough, Norwich, and Wakefield due to data being unavailable from these Project ADDER areas. ↩

4. Arrest data excludes data from London (Hackney and Tower Hamlets) from December 2022 to March 2023 due to data being unavailable from these Project ADDER areas during this period. ↩

5. Police Recorded Crime data refers to all activity in ADDER and Accelerator areas (at Community Safety Partnership level). Data for the Norwich ADDER area differs from Norwich Community Safety Partnership area. ↩