British intelligence agencies#Single Intelligence Account

The UK Intelligence Community consists of the following.

• National Security Council
• Joint Intelligence Committee

The National Security Adviser (NSA) is a senior official in the Cabinet Office, based in Whitehall, who serves as the principal adviser to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Cabinet of the United Kingdom on all national security issues.{{Cite web |title=Sir Tim Barrow appointed as National Security Adviser |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-tim-barrow-appointed-as-national-security-adviser |access-date=2023-04-02 |website=GOV.UK |language=en}}

The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament oversees the policies, expenditure, administration and operations of the UK Intelligence Community. Complaints are heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Other oversight is provided by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.

The following agencies, groups and organisations fall under the remit of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament:{{Cite web |title=Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament |url=https://isc.independent.gov.uk/ |access-date=2024-09-07 |language=en-GB}}

Four national centres and authorities support and complement the work of the agencies:

• HM Government Communications Centre (HMGCC), provides electronics and software to support the communication needs of the UK Government;
• National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a child agency of GCHQ
• National Protective Security Authority (NPSA), a child agency of MI5;
• UK National Authority for Counter Eavesdropping (UK NACE), part of FCDO Services.

Organised intelligence collection and planning for the Government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire was established during the 19th century. The War Office, responsible for the administration of the British Army, formed the Intelligence Branch in 1873, which became the Directorate of Military Intelligence. The Admiralty, responsible for command of the Royal Navy, formed the Foreign Intelligence Committee in 1882,Allen. The Foreign Intelligence Committee. p. 68. which evolved into the Naval Intelligence Department (NID) in 1887.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Obituary |department=Obituaries |date=13 March 1895 |page=10 |issue=34523 |column=F }}

The Committee of Imperial Defence, established in 1902, was responsible for research, and some co-ordination, on issues of military strategy.

The Secret Service Bureau was founded in 1909 as a joint initiative of the Admiralty and the War Office to control secret intelligence operations in the UK and overseas, particularly concentrating on the activities of the Imperial German government. The Bureau was split into naval and army sections which, over time, specialised in foreign espionage and internal counter-espionage activities respectively. This specialisation, formalised before 1914, was a result of the Admiralty intelligence requirements related to the maritime strength of the Imperial German Navy.

File:Zimmermann_Telegram_as_Received_by_the_German_Ambassador_to_Mexico_-_NARA_-_302025.jpg as it was sent from Washington, DC, to Ambassador Heinrich von Eckardt, the German ambassador to Mexico.]]

In 1916, during the First World War, the two sections underwent administrative changes so that the internal counter-espionage section became the Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 5 (MI5) and the foreign section became the Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 6 (MI6), names by which the Security Service and Secret Intelligence Service are commonly known today.

The Naval Intelligence Division led the Royal Navy's highly successful cryptographic efforts, Room 40 (later known as NID25). The decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram was described as the most significant intelligence triumph for Britain during World War I,{{cite news|title=Why was the Zimmerman Telegram so important?|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38581861|access-date=17 January 2017|work=BBC|date=17 January 2017}} and one of the earliest occasions on which a piece of signals intelligence influenced world events.{{cite news|title=The telegram that brought America into the First World War|url=http://www.historyextra.com/article/bbc-history-magazine/telegram-brought-america-first-world-war|access-date=17 January 2017|work=BBC History Magazine|date=17 January 2017}}

The Imperial War Cabinet was the British Empire's wartime coordinating body.

In 1919, the Cabinet's Secret Service Committee recommended that a peacetime codebreaking agency should be created.Johnson, 1997, p. 44 Staff were merged from NID25 and MI1b into the new organisation,Johnson, 1997, p. 45 and Kahn, 1991, p. 82 which was given the cover-name the "Government Code and Cypher School" (GC&CS).{{Cite book|last=Macksey|first=Kenneth|title=The Searchers: How Radio Interception Changed the Course of Both World Wars|year=2003| publisher=Cassell Military|isbn=978-0-304-36545-6|page=58}}

The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was founded in 1936 as a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence.{{Cite book|title=Spying on the World|year=2014|isbn=9780748678570|page=10|last1=Aldrich|first1=Richard James|last2=Cormac|first2=Rory|last3=Goodman|first3=Michael S.}}

Following the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the JIC became the senior intelligence assessment body for the United Kingdom government. During the War, the RAF Intelligence Branch was established, although personnel had been employed in intelligence duties in the RAF since its formation in 1918. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was operational from 1940 until early 1946. SOE conducted espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and later in occupied Southeast Asia against the Axis powers and aided local resistance movements.

File:Bletchley_decrypt.jpg intercept sheet of an Enigma machine message, after decryption.]]

The 1943 British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, BRUSA, connected the signal intercept networks of the GC&CS and the U.S. National Security Agency.{{Cite news |date=2016-02-08 |title=How the British and Americans started listening in |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35491822 |access-date=2023-04-02}} The GC&CS was based largely at Bletchley Park. Its staff, including Alan Turing, worked on cryptanalysis of the Enigma (codenamed Ultra) and Lorenz cipher,{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Gannon |title=Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret |publisher=Atlantic Books |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-84354-331-2}} and also a large number of other enemy systems. Winston Churchill was reported to have told King George VI, when presenting to him Stewart Menzies (head of the Secret Intelligence Service and the person who controlled distribution of Ultra decrypts to the government): "It is thanks to the secret weapon of General Menzies, put into use on all the fronts, that we won the war!"The source for this quote is Gustave Bertrand, Enigma, p. 256, at the end of a short passage asserting the importance of Enigma-derived intelligence for Allied victory. F. W. Winterbotham quoted the western Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, at war's end describing Ultra as having been "decisive" to Allied victory.{{sfn|Winterbotham|1974|pp=154, 191}} Sir Harry Hinsley, Bletchley Park veteran and official historian of British Intelligence in World War II, made a similar assessment about Ultra, saying that it shortened the war "by not less than two years and probably by four years"; and that, in the absence of Ultra, it is uncertain how the war would have ended.{{sfn|Hinsley|1996}}

File:GCHQ_Cuban_Missile_Crisis_Intercept.webp.]]

The Government Code and Cypher School was renamed the "Government Communications Headquarters" (GCHQ) in 1946.{{Cite book|last= Smith|first=Michael|title=Station X|year=1998|publisher=Channel 4 books|isbn=978-0-330-41929-1|page= 176}} The Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) was established the same year.Dylan, p. xiii It was structured into a series of divisions: procurement (JIB 1), geographic (JIB 2 and JIB 3), defences, ports and beaches (JIB 4), airfields (JIB 5), key points (JIB 6), oil (JIB 7) and telecommunications (JIB 8).Dylan, p. 31

Wartime signals intelligence cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States continued in the post-war period.{{cite news|title=How the British and Americans started listening in|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35491822|access-date=24 February 2016|work=BBC|date=8 February 2016}} The two countries signed the bilateral UKUSA Agreement in 1948.{{Cite news |date=2021-03-05 |title=Diary reveals birth of secret UK-US spy pact that grew into Five Eyes |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56284453 |access-date=2023-04-02}} Later broadened to include Canada, Australia and New Zealand, known as the Five Eyes, as well as cooperation with several "third-party" nations, this became the cornerstone of Western intelligence gathering and the "Special Relationship" between the UK and the USA.{{Cite magazine|last=Adam White|title=How a Secret Spy Pact Helped Win the Cold War|magazine=Time|url=http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2000262,00.html|date=29 June 2010}} Since World War II, the chief of the London station of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has attended the Joint Intelligence Committee's weekly meetings. One former US intelligence officer has described this as the "highlight of the job" for the London CIA chief.{{cite web|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/node/146347|title=Why no questions about the CIA?|date=September 2003|publisher=New Statesman|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130706233849/http://www.newstatesman.com/node/146347|archive-date=2013-07-06|url-status=dead}} Resident intelligence chiefs from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand may attend when certain issues are discussed.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}}

The Joint Intelligence Committee moved to the Cabinet Office in 1957 with its assessments staff who prepared intelligence assessments for the committee to consider.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, GCHQ Scarborough intercepted radio communications from Soviet ships reporting their positions and used that to establish where they were heading. A copy of the report was sent directly to the White House Situation Room, providing initial indications of Soviet intentions with regard to the US naval blockade of Cuba.

When the Ministry of Defence was formed in 1964, the Joint Intelligence Bureau, Naval Intelligence, Military Intelligence and Air Intelligence were combined to form the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS).Dylan, p. 184 The DIS focussed initially on Cold War issues.{{cite web |url= https://www.gov.uk/defence-intelligence-services |title=Defence Intelligence: Roles |work=Ministry of Defence |date=12 December 2012 |access-date=4 November 2014}}

As well as a mission to gather intelligence, GCHQ has for a long time had a corresponding mission to assist in the protection of the British government's communications. Building on the work of James H. Ellis in the late 1960s, Clifford Cocks invented a public-key cryptography algorithm in 1973 (equivalent to what would become, in 1978, the RSA algorithm), which was shared with the National Security Agency in the United States.{{Cite web|title=British Document Outlines Early Encryption Discovery|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/122497encrypt.html|access-date=2021-05-12|website=archive.nytimes.com|quote=The set of algorithms, equations and arcane mathematics that make up public key cryptography are a crucial technology for preserving computer privacy in and making commerce possible on the Internet. Some hail its discovery as one of the most important accomplishments of 20th-century mathematics because it allows two people to set up a secure phone call without meeting beforehand. Without it, there would be no privacy in cyberspace.}}

The Security Service Act 1989 established the legal basis of the Security Service (MI5) for the first time under the government led by Margaret Thatcher. GCHQ and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) were placed on a statutory footing by the Intelligence Services Act 1994 under the government led by John Major.

The National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre (NISCC) and the National Security Advice Centre (NSAC) were formed in 1999. NISCC's role was to provide advice to companies operating critical national infrastructure,{{Cite web |date=9 June 2005 |title=Past Events: Aligning and Sustaining IT Infrastructure for Business Benefit |url=http://www.elite.bcs.org/090605.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110521183721/http://www.elite.bcs.org/090605.html |archive-date=21 May 2011 |access-date=25 May 2012 |publisher=British Computer Society}} and NSAC was a unit within MI5 that provided security advice to other parts of the UK government. The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) was formed as a child agency of MI5 in 2007, merging the NISCC and NSAC.{{Cite web |date=1 February 2007 |title=Launch of The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) |url=https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/news-2007-february.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120507061948/https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/news-2007-february.html |archive-date=7 May 2012 |access-date=25 May 2012 |publisher=Security Service}} CPNI provided integrated security advice (combining information, personnel, and physical) to the businesses and organisations which made up the critical national infrastructure.{{Cite web |author=Margaret Rouse |date=February 2008 |title=Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) |url=http://searchsecurity.techtarget.co.uk/definition/Centre-for-the-Protection-of-National-Infrastructure |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120505220716/http://searchsecurity.techtarget.co.uk/definition/Centre-for-the-Protection-of-National-Infrastructure |archive-date=5 May 2012 |access-date=25 May 2012 |publisher=SearchSecurity.co.uk}} In 2016, the cybersecurity-related aspects of the CPNI's role were taken over by the newly-formed National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a child agency of GCHQ.{{cite web |author1=HM Government |date=1 November 2016 |title=National Cyber Security Strategy 2016-2021 |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/564268/national_cyber_security_strategy.pdf |access-date=2 November 2016 |website=gov.uk |page=29}} The CPNI evolved into the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) in 2023, taking on a remit beyond critical national infrastructure.{{Cite web |title=About NPSA |url=https://www.npsa.gov.uk/about-npsa |access-date=2023-03-28 |website=www.npsa.gov.uk |language=en}}

The Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OCST) was created in 2007 and is responsible for leading work on counter-terrorism working closely with the police and security services. The OSCT was renamed the Homeland Security Group in 2021.

The Defence Intelligence Staff changed its name to Defence Intelligence (DI) in 2009. Defence Intelligence has a unique position within the UK intelligence community as an 'all-source' intelligence function.

The National Security Council (NSC) was established in 2010, reestablishing the central coordination of national security issues seen in the Committee of Imperial Defence.{{Cite web |title=The National Security Council |url=https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/national-security-council |access-date=2023-04-02 |website=Institute for Government |date=4 November 2014 |language=en}} The Joint Intelligence Organisation was formalised to provide intelligence assessment and advice on development of the UK intelligence community's analytical capability for the Joint Intelligence Committee and NSC.{{cite web|title=Joint Intelligence Organisation - GOV.UK|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/national-security/groups/joint-intelligence-organisation|access-date=2014-03-07|publisher=gov.uk}}

The heads of the Five Eyes domestic security agencies gave a public presentation together for the first time in 2023.{{Cite web |date=October 18, 2023 |title=Five Eyes spy chiefs warn Silicon Valley over Chinese threat |url=https://www.ft.com/content/0a37da0a-ad06-43d0-b069-bfafa0ff35a4 |access-date=2024-10-08 |website=Financial Times}} The MI6 chief and the CIA director made their first-ever joint remarks in an opinion piece in the Financial Times in 2024.{{Cite news |date=2024-09-07 |title=Bill Burns and Richard Moore: Intelligence partnership helps the US and UK stay ahead in an uncertain world |url=https://www.ft.com/content/252d7cc6-27de-46c0-9697-f3eb04888e70 |access-date=2024-09-07 |work=Financial Times}}{{Cite web |title=MI6 and CIA warn of 'reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe' being waged by Russia |url=https://news.sky.com/story/mi6-and-cia-warn-of-reckless-campaign-of-sabotage-across-europe-being-waged-by-russia-13210838 |access-date=2024-09-07 |website=Sky News |language=en |quote=in their first-ever joint remarks}}

{{Anchor|Single Intelligence Account}}

The Single Intelligence Account (SIA) is the funding vehicle for the three main security and intelligence agencies: the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6),[https://www.sis.gov.uk/about-us/legislation-and-accountability/funding-and-financial-controls.html SIS: Funding and financial controls] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141110091725/https://www.sis.gov.uk/about-us/legislation-and-accountability/funding-and-financial-controls.html |date=2014-11-10 }} Retrieved on 2 March 2014. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)[http://www.gchq.gov.uk/how_we_work/running_the_business/Pages/Funding-financial-controls.aspx GCHQ funding & financial controls] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140302175011/http://www.gchq.gov.uk/how_we_work/running_the_business/Pages/Funding-financial-controls.aspx |date=2014-03-02 }} Retrieved on 2 March 2014. and the Security Service (MI5).{{cite web|title=Funding {{!}} MI5 - The Security Service (2014)|url=https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/who-we-are/funding.html|access-date=2 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408001838/https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/who-we-are/funding.html|archive-date=8 April 2014}} Spending on the SIA was £3.6 billion in financial year 2022/23.{{Cite web |title=Security and Intelligence Agencies Financial Statements 2022-23 (HTML) |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/security-and-intelligence-agencies-financial-statement-2022-2023/security-and-intelligence-agencies-financial-statements-2022-23-html |access-date=2024-05-05 |website=GOV.UK |language=en}}

Defence Intelligence is an integral part of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and is funded within the UK's defence budget.

• Counter Terrorism Command
• Club de Berne, an intelligence-sharing forum that includes the UK
• Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing alliance that includes the UK
• Information Research Department
• Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)
• List of intelligence agencies global list sorted by country
• Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom
• UK cyber security community

{{reflist|2}}

• {{cite book|last=Dylan|first=Huw |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sSTSBAAAQBAJ&q=Kenneth+Strong+Joint+Intelligence+Bureau&pg=PA32|title=Defence Intelligence and the Cold War: Britain's Joint Intelligence Bureau 1945-1964|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-0199657025}}
• {{citation | last = Hinsley | first = Sir Harry | author-link = Harry Hinsley | title = The Influence of ULTRA in the Second World War | orig-year = 1993 | year = 1996 | url = http://www.cdpa.co.uk/UoP/HoC/Lectures/HoC_08e.PDF | access-date = 23 July 2012 }} Transcript of a lecture given on Tuesday 19 October 1993 at Cambridge University
• {{cite book |first=John |last=Johnson |title=The Evolution of British Sigint: 1653–1939 |year=1997 |publisher=HMSO |asin=B002ALSXTC}}
• {{citation | last = Winterbotham | first = F. W. | author-link = F. W. Winterbotham | title = The Ultra Secret | location = New York | publisher = Harper & Row | year = 1974 | isbn = 978-0-06-014678-8 }} The first published account of the previously secret wartime operation, concentrating mainly on the distribution of intelligence. It was written from memory and has been shown by subsequent authors, who had access to official records, to contain some inaccuracies.

• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct03lr The Secret History of GCHQ] BBC documentary

{{UK Intelligence Agencies|state=expanded}}

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United Kingdom

Category:Government agencies of the United Kingdom

Category:Espionage in the United Kingdom