The Head of CTP was clear that CHIS play a central role in the investigation process, and that there were processes in place to ensure that MI5 and CTP were joined up when it came to handling CHIS:
So we provide exactly that same capability. What we have done over the years is the authorisation of the particular individual in the job that is important. So either Ken's people [MI5], senior people would be authorising the job, or mine will be, and then they will seek concurrency from each other, so we are not effectively treading on each other’s toes or we are doing a joint operation on the same subject.
I have always described this as my kind of 'Judi Dench' moment in Skyfall: people get very obsessed with data and IT, but actually without Human Intelligence, we don't get good prosecutions. It is an absolutely vital capability. It saves lives all the time.[1]
203. However, issues identified by Lord Anderson have yet to be resolved—in particular, the matter of transferring historical records from CTP to MI5, and the requirement for MI5's discovery tools to be 'threat agnostic'. MI5 advised that progress is being made on the transfer of data: "***. So the core elements of [the] police's pre-existing knowledge are now replicated within MI5 systems . . . but there is still further work to do."[2]
204. There is a tacit recognition that ERWT is a comparatively new area for MI5, and one that has evolved rapidly over the past five years. The Director General of MI5 acknowledged: "We are also very aware that *** when our machine triages an Islamist-related lead, we can pretty rapidly have a pretty confident sense that we are seeing this with a high degree of fidelity." However, he also pointed out that their international counterparts are in a similar situation: "It is not that the UK is playing catch up here. Everyone is dealing with this emerging phenomenon and deepening their understanding as we go."[3] More broadly, MI5 concede that:
Identifying the boundaries of MI5's role in ERWT has proved challenging. ***.[4]
205. CTP still holds the responsibility for investigating any other activity that does not meet the ERWT threshold but is of terrorism relevance, including in relation to violent public order issues.
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