Teesside to tackle crime in Lithuania

The University of Teesside is to begin a drive to help the authorities in a former Soviet republic crackdown on corruption.

The £1.2 million project in the Baltic republic of Lithuania is part of a larger programme aimed at helping law-enforcement agencies in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe to tackle corruption.

The training and consultancy programme was devised for the European Union and aims to pave the way for possible membership of the EU for countries such as Lithuania, which need to meet stringent entry requirements.

The university has formed a consortium with Cleveland Police and consultants PriceWaterhouseCoopers to carry out the programme.

Alan Doig, professor of public services management at Teesside and programme manager, said: "The aim is to teach, train and assist government departments in Lithuania in strategic management, provide specialist training in fraud prevention and help improve police investigative techniques with a particular focus of tackling corruption."

"We envisage that as many as 300 government officials and police officers from Lithuania are likely to be involved," he added. "They want to strengthen their anti-corruption special investigative services."

The Teesside consortium beat competition from France, Germany and Italy to win the contract.

Professor Doig said Cleveland Police and the university already worked together on professional policing.