THE National Crime Agency needs to make “drastic improvements” in its work to claw back criminal assets, after it seized just £22.5m in its first year despite costing almost £500m, according to a report by MPs.

The Commons home affairs select committee said on Tuesday that the NCA, which became fully operational in October 2013, is not yet meeting expectations and that the money it clawed back in its first year is not enough to justify its budget.

“It is not yet the FBI equivalent that it was hailed to be,” said Keith Vaz, the committee chairman.

Only last week, MLAs in Northern Ireland back a plan to allow the NCA to operate in Northern Ireland after oversight safeguards were implemented.

The committee also voiced concerns about the NCA’s slow response to the backlog of child abuse cases, including 2,000 names sent by the Toronto police to the child exploitation and online protection centre in July 2012. Ceop is now part of the NCA.

The MPs endorsed the ambitious programme of police reform undertaken by the home secretary, Theresa May, which has seen all the major policing bodies overhauled and reformed.

But they added that it is still far from clear whether this attempt to “declutter the policing landscape” will lead to fewer organisations in the end.

They also said that one major piece of the jigsaw – the future of counter-terrorism policing – had yet to be settled. The Metropolitan police currently have national responsibility for counter-terrorism and have already seen off an attempt to transfer responsibility to the NCA.

The MPs said they agree with the home secretary’s decision not to review the position of counter-terrorism policing before the general election because of the terrorism risk currently faced by Britain.

They said: “However, given recent national events and global atrocities, it does not appear likely that the terrorism risk will decrease in the near future. Therefore, we recommend that the review take place early in the next parliament, to maximise the impact of the police’s counter-terrorism capabilities.”

The NCA took over from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which also had powers to claw back assets from criminals.

During the MPs’ inquiry, Keith Bristow, the NCA’s director general, said that his organisation had seized £22.5m in its first year, with 3,329 arrests and 400 convictions.

This compared with Soca’s £14.9m assets it recovered in its last year of operation.

Vaz said: “The NCA has been a success and has proved to be more responsive and more active than its predecessor, Soca, but it is not yet the FBI equivalent that it was hailed to be.

“Its reputation has been damaged by the unacceptably slow response to the backlog of child abuse cases sent to it by the Toronto police … Its current asset recovery is not of a sufficient volume when set against its half a billion pound budget.”

Bristow announced details on Monday of a new information-sharing agreement with the 10 biggest British banks to hand the NCA details of the accounts and financial transactions of people suspected of money laundering and other serious offences. This agreement could lead to a major boost in the recovery of criminal assets.

The MPs’ report also said that the need to make further savings after the general election meant that voluntary mergers were back on the agenda for those forces that believed they would not be able to operate in their current form.