Crime) (Northern Ireland) Order 2015 which extended provisions of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 to Northern Ireland. A general authorisation was signed by Minister of Justice for Northern Ireland and the Director General granted trained and qualified NCA officers the powers of a constable in Northern Ireland. However, the NCA requires authorisation from the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland for the use of covert techniques. Challenges The NCA faces several challenges. The first of these is the scale of the growing problem facing them. At the end of 2014 UK law enforcement estimated there were 5,800 organised crime groups – comprising some 40,600 individuals. This is an increase of three hundred organised crime groups and 3,500 people on the year before. The National Crime Agency (NCA) estimates that there are as many as 50,000 people in the UK involved in the downloading and viewing of indecent images online. The Director General of the NCA has suggested that the British public cannot expect every person viewing indecent images to enter the criminal justice system – not least because of the sheer scale of the problem. The NCA received 12,505 referrals from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in its first 12 months, compared to 9,855 in 2012, an increase of almost 27 per cent. Tackling modern slavery is another area that the Home Secretary has identified as requiring more effort. The Home Office's Chief Scientific Adviser estimates that there may have been as many as 13,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK in 2013. This figure was increased in August 2017 to "tens of thousands of victims". Most will rely on the services of organised criminal groups at some point in their journey to the UK. In addition to this the NCA has been tasked with the Rotherham investigation into child sex exploitation. According to the NCA there are 3,300 lines of enquiry, around 1,400 victims and 300 suspects. The second challenge, of funding and resources, links with the first challenge. Although the NCA budget is half a billion pounds, in proportion to the scale of the problem it is small. The combined budget of previous agencies and units that make up the NCA was almost a billion pounds, so the agency has had an almost 50% cut before its creation. The NCA has 5000 staff only around 1250 of which are