Money, in-kind payment, basic needs, or the power and influence that resources can bring.
The meaning of a reward, the strength of need, and the effect of payment on the relationship can all change over time.
Ten motives. Five hearths. One changing mixture.
What keeps an informant talking?
A source can cooperate for several reasons at once, and the mixture can change. FIREPLACES expands the familiar four-part MICE mnemonic into ten motives, then asks handlers to judge their strength and evolution.
FI
RE
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The central idea
A motive is a moving condition
FIREPLACES is a mnemonic for attention. It gives handlers more places to look while resisting the temptation to reduce a person to one permanent label.
The 2021 framework grew from biographies, autobiographies, source-referral research, and an emerging study of UK domestic-extremism informants. It preserves MICE's four familiar categories and adds revenge, excitement, protection, lifestyle, access, and sentence.
Its most useful claim concerns movement. Motivation has a nature and direction, as well as a magnitude. Several motives can coexist. Their relative strength can shift as risk, reward, loyalty, fear, and the relationship itself change.
The ten-motive instrument
Light the motives that might coexist
Select any motives to build a qualitative profile. The hearths show mixture, not a score. The framework does not assign probability or prove that a declared motive is true.
FI
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Selected motives
Start with a declared reason
Then ask what else may sit beside it, how strong each motive is, and what evidence could reveal change.
Select one or more motives
Opposition to a person or group whose beliefs or conduct conflict with the source's own moral or political position.
The precise belief, the target of disagreement, and the degree of disenchantment shape this motive.
A wish to harm someone in response to an injury, grievance, rejection, or perceived injustice.
A desired outcome can shape which details are supplied and how they are presented.
Thrill, arousal, secrecy, or the private exercise of power that comes with the role.
The appeal of intensity can encourage risk-taking or embellishment.
Cooperation intended to reduce a threat to the source, their family, associates, or criminal enterprise.
The threat, welfare needs, and limits of available protection determine how this motive develops.
Material access, experiences, status, or a way of living attached to deployments and rewards.
Practical need and aspiration can overlap, especially when the role itself becomes part of a way of life.
A counter-penetration motive: learning what authorities know, distracting them, or shaping their attention.
A counter-penetration motive makes the origin, purpose, and pattern of information central to source security.
Information supplied under threat, blackmail, restriction, or pressure from an official.
Coercion puts legality, voluntariness, welfare, reliability, and safe management in immediate tension.
Self-esteem, recognition, importance, power, or influence gained through the informant role.
A need for significance can begin to affect accuracy, boundaries, or conduct.
Information supplied in the hope of reducing a likely sentence or securing earlier release from detention.
This motive depends on what can legally be offered, what the source expects, and whether those expectations are realistic.
Return to the same questions over time. Their value lies in showing how motives coexist and change. S2
What later research added
The mixture appeared in the data
A 2023 study examined self-declared and handler-assessed motives among adult UK informants authorised to report on domestic extremism. Four figures explain why a dynamic model matters.
0148%
Financial
declared as the primary motive
0238%
Ideological
declared as the primary motive
0364%
Secondary motive
declared an additional reason
0413%
Changed
handler assessment changed after six months
How the questions changed
From four boxes to a review loop
Together, these models show four different emphases: broad motive labels, personal trajectories, influence within a relationship, and repeated reassessment.
- Cold War era
MICE
Money, ideology, compromise or coercion, and ego or excitement became the durable four-part shorthand for espionage motives. The exact origin remains uncertain. S4
- 1985 onward
Project SLAMMER
A US intelligence-community programme interviewed convicted American spies to study the behaviour and life changes that preceded espionage. It shifted attention from entry motives to longer personal trajectories. S8
- 2013
RASCLS
Randy Burkett adapted Robert Cialdini's influence principles for agent recruitment: reciprocation, authority, scarcity, commitment and consistency, liking, and social proof. It asks how cooperation is formed and sustained. S4
- 2021
FIREPLACES
Stanier and Nunan published ten motives for the law-enforcement and intelligence-source context, with explicit attention to mixed and changeable motivation. S1
- 2023-2024
Evidence and public update
The domestic-extremism study supplied empirical support for secondary motives and change. CREST updated the public article, guide, and poster in May 2024. S3
Three lenses, three jobs
MICE and FIREPLACES classify stated or assessed motives. RASCLS examines influence inside a relationship. The legal code governs whether and how that relationship may operate.
| Lens | Question | Best use | Blind spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| MICE | What broad motive is present? | Fast recall and initial orientation | Four categories can freeze a changing person into one label |
| RASCLS | What influence shapes cooperation? | Relationship and persuasion analysis | It does not identify the underlying motive by itself |
| FIREPLACES | Which motives coexist, how strong are they, and what changed? | Structured review of a wider motive set | A mnemonic cannot establish whether an assessed motive is accurate |
The regulated relationship
A mnemonic sits inside law, welfare, and oversight
In the UK, a person becomes a Covert Human Intelligence Source when they establish or maintain a relationship for a covert purpose and obtain, disclose, or provide access to information. Motive assessment is one small part of a regulated system. S5
Handler
Day-to-day contact, direction, recording, security, and welfare.
Controller
Management of the handler and general oversight of the source.
Authorising officer
Decides whether use is necessary and proportionate, then reviews or renews the authority.
Independent scrutiny
IPCO inspects authorisations, contact records, risk assessments, source security, welfare, and management. Juvenile and vulnerable-source cases receive specific review. S6
Ethical boundary
A category can sharpen attention; it cannot supply consent, reliability, necessity, proportionality, or legality. MI5's public position states that its agents are volunteers and that it does not blackmail or force people to help. S7
The portable test
Five questions survive the mnemonic
The letters earn their keep when they lead back to a living person and a relationship under review.
- 01
What is the motive now?
- 02
What else sits beside it?
- 03
How strong is each motive?
- 04
What has changed since the last review?
- 05
What does that change mean for welfare, reliability, and the limits of cooperation?
Source ledger
Read the model, the evidence, and the rules
CREST documents the ten categories and their definitions. The 2023 percentages come from a protected empirical dataset. MICE, Project SLAMMER, RASCLS, and FIREPLACES address different questions; the available evidence does not establish a single validated sequence.
Sources current to 28 July 2026 include CREST's article, guide, poster, and Security Review; the 2023 accepted manuscript; CIA historical materials; and current UK guidance from the Home Office, IPCO, and MI5.
- S1FIREPLACES and Informant Motivation
CREST article, 1 June 2021; updated May 2024.
- S2Identifying Informant Motivation: The FIREPLACES Framework
CREST Security Review 11, 2021; updated May 2024.
- S3Exploring the Motivation of the United Kingdom's Domestic Extremist Informants
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, published online 9 April 2023. DOI 10.1080/1057610X.2023.2195064.
- S4An Alternative Framework for Agent Recruitment: From MICE to RASCLS
Studies in Intelligence 57(1), March 2013.
- S5Covert Human Intelligence Sources Code of Practice
Current code published 13 December 2022.
- S6Covert Human Intelligence Sources
Public description of the inspection and oversight regime.
- S7Covert Human Intelligence Sources
Public account of agents, handling, safety, law, and oversight.
- S8Project SLAMMER Interim Report
12 April 1990 memorandum describing the programme begun in 1985.