The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has completed the first phase of a five-year IT overhaul to help in the battle against organised crime.

But the agency has admitted that it faced challenges in training staff to a level where the improvement will have a material effect on tackling criminals.

Soca’s annual reports says the “challenges involved in increasing knowledge to a level that would facilitate a transformation of the impact on organised crime still remained significant”.

So far the programme has given overseas staff secure access to IT systems, improved the internal management of information and upgraded software to improve the collection of Suspicious Activity Reports ­ a mechanism allowing the public to electronically report financial crime.

In theory, the system will give staff better access to intelligence material, according to Soca chairman Stephen Lander.

“Soca needs to be able to work seamlessly in local communities and at the same time internationally if it is to be effective, and we saw this year that it has both the skills and systems to do so.”

As part of the project Soca consolidated some of its legacy systems.

“Subject to the availability of sufficient capital funding, these strategies will see Soca move from an inherited estate with much expensive, poorly sited and inconvenient accommodation and a large number of legacy IT systems to fully fit for purpose arrangements over a three to five-year period,” says the report.

Soca would not comment on how much of its annual £440m budget would be required to complete these projects.

In November 2007 it said £10m was needed just to overhaul the IT behind the Suspicious Activity Reports system.