Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme
Published 10 September 2026
Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales
© Crown copyright 2026
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/asset-recovery-statistics-financial-years-ending-2021-to-2026/asset-recovery-incentivisation-scheme
ARIS was introduced in 2006 to allow a proportion of the proceeds of crime recovered under Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA), to be redistributed to agencies involved in the asset recovery process. The scheme is designed to recycle recovered funds back into the system, to support further asset recovery activity and the wider response to economic crime. Agencies are therefore encouraged to prioritise reinvesting ARIS funds in asset recovery capability and economic crime interventions, while retaining flexibility to support wider crime fighting priorities that benefit the community.
Data presented on the ARIS payments is provided by a Home Office administrative database.
1. ARIS payments distributed to POCA agencies
In the financial year ending March 2026, £129.6 million was distributed directly to POCA agencies. While this represents a 19% decrease compared to the previous year, the reduction was primarily driven by a delayed ARIS payment relating to a high-value asset recovery case, which resulted in an unusually large payment to the SFO in financial year ending March 2025. Excluding this exceptional payment, distributions increased by 3% compared to the previous year.
For consistency and accuracy, all subsequent analysis in this section uses adjusted figures that exclude the impact of this exceptional SFO payment.
Figure 1: ARIS receipts paid to POCA agencies from the financial year ending March 2021 until financial year ending March 2026, in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, by agency sector
Source: Home Office
Notes:
- Due to the process involved in calculating, assuring and distributing funds, ARIS payments are distributed a quarter in arrears with the final 2 quarterly payment made in the following financial year.
- Data presented in figure 1 shows the distribution of ARIS payments to POCA agencies based on administrative data managed by the Home Office.
- The financial year 2024 to 2025 includes a delayed outlier ARIS payment which has been highlighted for awareness. It will be excluded from subsequent analysis to ensure consistency in year-on-year comparisons
1.1 ARIS funding in the financial year ending March 2026
The 5 largest recipients of ARIS funds in the financial year ending March 2026 were the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) (£19.7 million), HM Revenue & Customs (£14.7 million), HMCTS (£13.9 million), National Crime Agency (£13.1 million) and the Metropolitan Police (£9.9 million). These agencies were also the largest recipients of ARIS funds over the last 6 financial years, accounting for £409.9 million of the £702.3 million (58%) total ARIS payments.
In the financial year ending March 2026, the amount of ARIS paid to departments, agencies and public bodies was £66.8 million, accounting for 52% of the total amount of ARIS payments made to POCA agencies. Local police forces and regional police forces received £52.6 million (41%) and £5.2 million (4%) respectively. Lastly, local authorities received ARIS payments totalling £4.9 million (4%).
1.2 ARIS funding trends over the 6-year period
Since the financial year ending March 2021, departments, agencies and public bodies have received more in ARIS payments than any other agency sector, accounting for 55% (£386.6 million) ARIS payments over the last 6 financial years. This higher proportion for departments, agencies and public bodies is largely due to HMCTS enforcing all cases and the CPS prosecuting the majority of cases, which results in a greater share of ARIS payments being allocated to these bodies.
ARIS payments decreased from the financial year ending March 2022 to the financial year ending March 2024, mirroring the reduction in proceeds of crime recovered through POCA over the same period. Payments then increased sharply in the financial year ending March 2025, largely due to a delayed payment relating to an exceptional high-value asset recovery case. Excluding this payment, ARIS funding would have totalled approximately £125.6 million, meaning the £129.6 million distributed in the financial year ending March 2026 represents a modest increase on the previous year and was broadly consistent with underlying trends.
1.3 Real terms comparison
As shown in figure 2, ARIS funding distributed to POCA agencies increased by 20% in real terms between the financial years ending March 2021 and March 2026, from £110.2 million to £132.2 million. Over the same period, nominal payments increased by 46%, from £89.1 million to £129.6 million. This indicates that growth in ARIS funding has not only increased in nominal terms, but has also outpaced inflation resulting in a real-terms increase
Figure 2: Nominal and real term value payments to POCA agencies under the ARIS scheme for financial years ending March 2021 to financial year ending March 2026, in England and Wales and Northern Ireland
Source: Home Office
Notes:
- Due to the process involved in calculating, assuring and distributing funds, ARIS payments are distributed a quarter in arrears with the final 2 quarterly payments made in the following financial year.
- Data presented in figure 2 shows the distribution of ARIS payments not the allocations based on administrative data managed by the Home Office.
- The statistics in figure 2 are presented in real terms, adjusted for inflation to current prices (financial year 2025 to 2026). Figures have been converted to real terms using the latest GDP deflators available at time of data extraction (published March 2026).
Further detail on real term figures can be found in table 12 of the Asset recovery statistics, financial years ending 2021 to 2026: data tables accompanying this bulletin.
2. Use of Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS) funding
Information presented on the use of ARIS funds is taken from a data collection managed by the Home Office which ran from May to June 2026 and asked POCA-enabled agencies how they used their ARIS funds in the financial year ending March 2025. The lag of one financial year allows time for the agencies to collate the necessary information. These statistics are considered as official statistics in development due to the quality of the data collection from which they are produced. For further information on statistics in development and known quality issues with the data sources used in the bulletin please refer to the accompanying User guide to Asset recovery statistics.
Following last year’s data collection exercise which ran from May to June 2025 (covering ARIS expenditure for financial year ending March 2024), the Home Office reviewed the “Use of ARIS Funds” questionnaire. To improve the quality and granularity of the data collected, a sample of POCA agencies that had received the highest average levels of ARIS funding over the previous 5 years were consulted. Their feedback informed a number of revisions to the latest questionnaire, which was used in the data collection that ran from May to June 2026 to collect data on ARIS expenditure in financial year ending March 2025.
A key change was the introduction of additional spending categories, enabling agencies to more accurately reflect the diverse ways in which ARIS funding is used. Earlier statistics on the use of ARIS funds published in this bulletin included a comparison of how ARIS funds were spent over time. However, the changes made to the last 2 rounds of the survey means the data covering the financial year ending March 2025 is not comparable to previous data published on the use of ARIS funds. For more information about the consultation and subsequent improvements, please see the accompanying User guide to Asset recovery statistics.
Statistics in this section for the financial year ending March 2025 are based on responses from 113 POCA agencies (out of a possible 172 POCA agencies). Of those, 101 reported spending ARIS funds within the financial year. Further details on the response rates can be found in the User guide to Asset recovery statistics under section 9.4.
Table 1: Use of ARIS funds by POCA agencies for the financial year ending March 2025
| Use of ARIS funds | Amount of ARIS funds (millions) | Proportion of funds accounted for (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Spending on work specifically aimed at increasing asset recovery capability, or which indirectly supports asset recovery | £67.3 | 55% |
| Spend unrelated to asset recovery (for example, within the broader remit of funding local crime fighting priorities for the benefit of the community) | £8.1 | 7% |
| Merging ARIS funds with other funding streams to support the department’s work as a whole. Funding cannot be tracked | £23.8 | 20% |
| Saving unspent ARIS funds in a reserve pot | £9.8 | 8% |
| Returning unspent ARIS funds to HM Treasury | £10.9 | 9% |
| Other use of funds not covered by the above | £1.5 | 1% |
| Total amount of ARIS funding reported on | £121.5 | - |
Source: Home Office
Notes:
- Data presented in table 1 is based on the 113 POCA agencies that submitted a response to the ‘Use of ARIS Funds’ data collection. As such, figures do not reflect the spend of all POCA-enabled agencies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that received ARIS funds as 58 agencies did not provide a response. Note, however, that 34 of the 36 biggest ARIS recipients, which received 90% of ARIS funds between them in the financial year ending 2025, did respond.
- Figures represent a combination of 1) ARIS expenditure in the financial year ending March 2025, which includes ARIS funds received in that financial year and those carried over from previous financial years, and 2) the management of ARIS funds received in the financial year ending March 2025.
- Due to the time lag between Home Office allocations and agencies receiving ARIS funds, these events can occur in different financial years. Agencies have reported only on funds received before the end of the financial year ending March 2025. Consequently, some funds allocated by the Home Office in the financial year ending March 2025 will not appear in agency reporting until the financial year ending March 2026.
In the financial year ending March 2025, agencies reported on the expenditure and management of £121.5 million of ARIS funds.
The largest proportion of ARIS funds (55%, £67.3 million) was spent on work specifically aimed at increasing asset recovery capability or that which indirectly supports asset recovery. Agencies were asked to provide a breakdown of how funds were spent on both strands of work related to asset recovery (see table 2), and staffing made up the largest proportion of spending (84%). This covered a range of roles, and most agencies reported using the funding to pay salary costs for financial investigators.
A fifth of ARIS funds reported in the financial year ending March 2025 (£23.8 million) were merged with other funding streams to support the work of the agency or department. As this broader activity helps enable asset recovery, this expenditure may be considered to indirectly support asset recovery. However, because ARIS funds are not ring-fenced or separately tracked once combined with wider budgets, agencies are unable to provide a detailed breakdown of how these funds were ultimately spent.
Where agencies are not bound by annularity rules, they may reserve unspent ARIS funds for later use. For the financial year ending March 2025, 8% of ARIS funds reported on were placed in a reserve pot. Most of those who reserved funds stated doing so to underpin existing spending commitments considering the unpredictable nature of ARIS funding. Money was also saved to fund future projects and to grow POCA or economic crime teams, purchase software, equipment and training, cover upcoming legal costs, and to spend on future grants.
One agency returned £10.9 million of ARIS funding to HM Treasury after receiving it too late in the financial year to spend. Due to annularity rules, the agency was unable to carry the funds forward into the following financial year.
Finally, £1.5 million (1%) of ARIS funds reported in the financial year ending March 2025 were recorded under the ‘other’ category. Review of the descriptions provided by agencies suggests that some of this expenditure could have been classified under existing categories. For example, some responses described ARIS funds being merged with other funding streams to support wider departmental costs, while others related to spending on work unrelated to asset recovery. Agencies also reported passing a share of ARIS funds to other organisations involved in their POCA activity. A small number of agencies were unable to provide information on how a proportion of the funds received in financial year ending March 2025 had been used.
Table 2: Breakdown of the use of ARIS funds by POCA agencies for the financial year ending March 2025 on work related and unrelated to asset recovery.
| Category of spending | Asset recovery related: ARIS funds spent (millions) | Asset recovery related: Proportion of funds spent (%) | Unrelated to asset recovery: ARIS funds spent (millions) | Unrelated to asset recovery: Proportion of funds spent (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community or crime prevention grants | £0.1 | 0% | £2.2 | 27% |
| Staffing | £56.7 | 84% | £1.1 | 13% |
| Equipment | £1.4 | 2% | £0.4 | 4% |
| Software | £2.4 | 4% | £2.1 | 26% |
| Training | £1.3 | 2% | £0.3 | 3% |
| Legal services | £2.1 | 3% | £0.0 | 0% |
| Commissioned services | £1.6 | 2% | £0.2 | 2% |
| Other | £1.6 | 2% | £2.0 | 24% |
Source: Home Office
Notes:
- A small number of agencies did not provide a breakdown of spend by category. In addition, for some agencies, the breakdown figures did not reconcile with the total spend reported for the category. As a result, the total spend derived from the breakdown does not exactly match the total expenditure reported as related to, or unrelated to, asset recovery in table 2.
- Some agencies reported expenditure under the ‘Other’ category, although their descriptions suggest that some of this spending aligns with the predefined spending breakdown categories. As a result, there is likely to be some overlap between the type of expenditure reported in the ‘Other’ category and the predefined categories.
- ARIS funds spent are rounded to the nearest million. As a result, some categories with expenditure at less than £0.05 million are rounded down to £0.0 million. Full figures can be found in in table 13d of the data tables accompanying this bulletin.
- Asset recovery related funds spent relates to work specifically aimed at increasing asset recovery capability, or which indirectly supports asset recovery.
- The caveats set out in the notes for table 1 also apply to the breakdowns presented in this figure.
In the financial year ending March 2025, agencies reported spending £8.1 million (7%) of ARIS funds on work unrelated to asset recovery (for example, within the broader Home Office remit of funding local crime fighting priorities for the benefit of the community). The largest proportion of spending under this category (27%) was on crime prevention or community grants, as was a large amount of the spending classed as ‘other’ which also described crime prevention initiatives and community engagement work. Software made up over a quarter of spending (26%) and this covered a range of operation-related software as well as that which assists with tackling economic crime, including asset recovery.
3. ARIS Top Slice
The ARIS Top Slice is a competed grant launched in 2015, available to all POCA enabled agencies, to support investment in key national and regional capabilities or to test innovative new approaches to improve asset recovery processes and performance. The funds for the grant come from a small deduction from ARIS receipts prior to their distribution to POCA agencies and the Home Office. Decisions on funding allocations are made by Ministers from the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, and Attorney General’s Office.
3.1 ARIS Top Slice statistics
These statistics are considered as experimental due to the quality of the administrative dataset which has been used in their production. For further information on official statistics in development and data quality please refer to the accompanying User guide to Asset recovery statistics.
In the financial year ending March 2022, Ministers agreed to raise the Top Slice budget from £7.5 million, which had been in place since the financial year ending March 2019, to £13.9 million.
For the financial year ending March 2026, 18 projects were awarded funding using the Top Slice budget with a total initial value of £12.8 million. High-value funding (£1 million+) was granted to the following projects:
- £2.4 million for the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to coordinate and deliver Asset Confiscation Enforcement teams in each Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU)
- £2 million to develop the cybercrime programme and build cryptocurrency capability, led by the NPCC and Serious Fraud Office
- £1.6 million to deliver a co-ordinated multi-agency cell to tackle illicit assets at the Border, led by Home Office Border Force
- £1.3 million for the CPS to dedicate a legal team to revisit defendants who have not paid their full criminal benefit from their original confiscation order
- £1.1 million to National Crime Agency to maintain the Joint Asset Recovery Database and helpdesk
- £1 million for the CPS to embed legal teams within Regional Asset Recovery Teams (RARTs) to provide asset recovery advice to disrupt Serious Organised Crime (SOC).
Remaining projects include new projects focused on innovations in the asset recovery and economic crime system, this included funding to explore the use of AI tooling in financial investigations, academic research into asset recovery, and the exploitation of data to target professional enablers.
In addition, £1.2 million was collectively identified in underspends from various Top Slice projects. To utilise this underspend, funds were reallocated to other projects. This reallocated amount uplifted 4 of the 6 projects listed above. Further details can be found in table 14 of the Asset recovery statistics, financial years ending 2021 to 2026: data tables accompanying this bulletin.
4. About these statistics
Future releases of this statistical publication are pre-announced on the statistics release calendar on the GOV.UK website. The accompanying User guide to Asset recovery statistics provides information on the different data sources used and the processes for this statistical release, as well as other statistical information about the Bulletin.
Tables and data
Asset recovery statistics, financial years ending 2021 to 2026: data tables provides 6-year time-series data for each POCA Power, ARIS allocations, data collected by the Home Office on the use of ARIS, cryptocurrency and proceeds of crime from international cooperation.
Feedback
Home Office is keen to receive feedback on its statistical publications to maintain their relevance for users.
Any feedback should be directed to the Asset Recovery Performance team through email: POCAPerformance@homeoffice.gov.uk
Press enquiries for this release should be directed to telephone number: 0300 123 3535.
Other enquiries on these statistics should be directed by email to: CriminalFinancesandAssetRecoveryUnit@homeoffice.gov.uk