SFO break up delayed as crime agency launches
THE UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was yesterday granted a temporary reprieve from plans to absorb it into a new national crime agency, after the home secretary Theresa May confirmed that a decision on its break up would be delayed.
Speaking as she unveiled more detailed plans for a new agency to tackle organised and economic crime in the UK, May said that the SFO would stay as it is, at least until the new body is up and running.
Instead of absorbing the SFO outright, part of the national crime agency will now act as a coordinating board for its functions, along with those of other economic crime bodies.
“We are setting up very soon a co-ordinating board, which is going to give a very clear message that we are taking economic crime seriously,” said May.
The potential for a review of the structure next year would coincide with SFO director Richard Alderman’s planned retirement.
After the concept of the new agency was unveiled in June last year, the Financial Services Authority and Office of Fair Trading successfully argued that they should be excluded from its jurisdiction.