Exploitation: Criminal Investigation

The Home Office is providing the Tackling Organised Exploitation (TOEX) programme with £8.8 million this year to increase law enforcements capability to respond to organised exploitation, including by providing dedicated intelligence, analytical and technical expertise.

In August 2025, the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls announced an additional £426,000 this year, which will enable all forces in England and Wales to access the cutting-edge digital tools that TOEX have developed to support police in detecting and investigating organised exploitation. This includes child sexual exploitation, alongside other organised exploitation crimes including modern slavery, organised immigration crimes, and criminal exploitation.

The additional funding will allow for the expedited roll out of the of the Capabilities Environment, to ensure all police investigators in England and Wales have access to the full array of TOEX’s AI-enabled and time-saving tools

The TOEX programme has already contacted all forces in England and Wales to provide information on how they can access the TOEX tools. In addition to the 15 police forces which are already utilising TOEX tools, since the Minister’s announcement in August, a further 10 forces are currently onboarding. TOEX will continue to engage with additional forces.

TOEX is also a critical component in supporting the delivery of Baroness Casey’s recommendation to establish a new national police operation for group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse (Operation Beaconport).