The Impact of COVID-19 on UK informant use and management

The effect of COVID-19 on informant use and management, during the peak of the imposed Government lockdown measures was felt across English and Welsh police Dedicated Source Units. Within these restrictions, staff managing informants had to develop and then implement new strategies that delivered safe, yet effective, informant handling capacity and capability. Based on a survey of 205 respondents directly involved in the handling, control or authorisation of informants, this article examined their perceptions of the effect of COVID-19 in this highly specialised policing activity. The research findings revealed five broad themes associated with the impact of COVID-19 on informant management practices: (i) health protection; (ii) governance; (iii) innovation and technology; (iv) recruitment, communication and informant development; and (v) tradecraft and intelligence. The article explored the organisational responses to initiating and maintaining informant-handler relationships and ensuring the flow of intelligence within this unique operational environment. Participants perceived that handler-informant relationships were strengthened, and also indications of a willingness to adapt policy and procedure associated with the informant management cycle: targeting, initial recruitment contact, assessment and evaluation, tasking and deployment and payment of informant rewards. It also highlighted a wider consensus that there was further scope for enhancing resilience to similar future pandemics including the use of enabling technology and responsive policy adaptation

The UEFA Champions League seeding is not strategy-proof since the 2015/16 season

Fairness has several interpretations in sports, one of them being that the rules should guarantee incentive compatibility, namely, a team cannot be worse off due to better results in any feasible scenario. The current seeding regime of the most prestigious annual European club football tournament, the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League, is shown to violate this requirement since the 2015/16 season. In particular, if the titleholder qualifies for the first pot by being a champion in a high-ranked league, its slot is given to a team from a lower-ranked association, which can harm a top club from the domestic championship of the titleholder. However, filling all vacancies through the national leagues excludes the presence of perverse incentives. UEFA is encouraged to introduce this policy from the 2021-24 cycle onwards.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl