Transparency data

Retail Crime Forum: minutes 15 May 2025

Updated 8 July 2025

Attendees

• Dame Diana Johnson, Minister for Police and Crime Prevention (Chair)
• Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, National Police Chiefs Council
• ACC Alex Goss, NPCC lead for retail crime
• PCC Andy Dunbobbin and PCC Katy Bourne, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners
• Opal
• City of London Police
• British Retail Consortium
• Association of Convenience Stores
• Federation of Wholesale Distributors
• USDAW
• Federation of Small Businesses
• The Federation of Independent Retailers
• National Association of Business Crime Reduction Partnerships
• Petrol Retailers Association
• British Independent Retailers Association
• Institute of Customer Services
• Auror
• Charity Retail Association
• Mitie
• Tesco
• Co-Op
• Sainsburys
• Aldi
• Lidl
• John Lewis
• Primark
• Next Group
• Morrisons
• BP
• Ikea
• Boots

Apologies

Dr Emmeline Taylor, University of City of London

Government update

Minister Johnson opened the meeting:

• The Crime and Policing Bill has now completed Commons committee stage. Both retail crime measures, assault on a retail worker and the repealing of the offence of low-value shoplifting (Section 176 of the Antisocial Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014), received widespread support.
• As announced in the Autumn Statement, the government will provide:
  • £100,000 in 2025-2026 for the National Police Chiefs’ Council for further training on prevention tactics
  • £5 million over three years to continue to fund the specialist analysis team within Opal to crack down on organised gangs targeting retailers
  • £2 million over three years to the National Business Crime Centre to share and support each other to prevent and combat crime

Officials from the Home Office Neighbourhood Crime Unit explained a government-led initiative that would run over the summer, to tackle antisocial behaviour (ASB), street crime and retail crime through increased collaboration at a local level focusing on town centres.

There was support for this initiative, with retailers noting that police forces engaging with local businesses is vital. Policing suggested issuing guidance on how to deal with young people in town centres, to ensure a more coherent and consistent response.

Police update

Amanda Blakeman acknowledged the rise in reporting of shop theft. Police are working to understand more about the rise in order to better allocate resources and carry out prevention work.  

Alex Goss highlighted increased police attendance to shop theft incidents, with a 45% increase in charge rates, one of the best of any crime type. Higher attendance has however put pressure on retailers to provide supporting evidence.

Retailers observed that there was still a confidence gap when it comes to reporting suspected offences and acknowledged they need to improve the standard of reports. If reports do not contain quality CCTV or witness statements, this creates issues for the police when investigating. There is also a training issue for retailers. There was a general discussion about reporting methods.

The representative from the National Business Crime Centre underlined the importance of data sharing for retailers and updated on the work done on the Safe Space scheme, in partnership with a range of retailers and private security companies.

Opal colleagues provided an update on Pegasus’ successes at the one-year mark.  

There was a discussion around the issue of controlling of stolen goods.  This included both physical and online resellers, for example car boot sales, market stalls, and online platforms.

There was broad agreement that this is a significant issue, with retailers working with online reselling platforms, but more work needs to be done with high volume sellers in particular.

Retail Crime Strategic Delivery Framework

Mitie introduced this as a piece of work involving collaboration between industry and policing to consolidate and build on efforts to tackle retail crime.    

Minister Johnson noted that it was an excellent piece of work and was happy to endorse and proceed. She was also keen to tie it into the Safer Streets Summer initiative.

Retail crime communications campaign

The representative from the Association of Convenience Stores provided an update on his vision of a retail crime communications campaign, to build on momentum around the retail crime measures in the Crime and Policing Bill. The objective was to change the way people think about shop theft.

There was broad support at the meeting for a collective communications campaign between police, government and retailers.

AOB

The Federation of Wholesale Distributors would like to continue to engage with the government on the definition of a retail worker in the retail crime measures in the Crime and Policing Bill.

Actions

• Boots to follow up with information regarding their US business and legislation in the US pertaining to online reselling of their goods.

• Policing / Mitie / Home Office Communications to take forward the official launch of the new Retail Crime Strategic Delivery Framework.

• Association of Convenience Stores to bring together volunteers from the forum to help take forward the retail crime communications campaign, with Home Office Communications officials to support.