UK fraud agency goes on hiring spree to top up numbers after departures
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has said that hiring 150 new staff was its “top priority” as it looks to continue its turnaround under new boss Nick Ephgrave.
The recruitment drive is primarily for new investigators, forty of which will be junior agents, a spokesman said. This would take the number of investigators back to the 600 that its budget from the Treasury accommodates for.
The spokesperson also confirmed the agency had made 100 job offers since the drive.
New boss Ephgrave, who before joining the SFO was the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner, hopes higher staff numbers will help it get the number of cases brought by the agency back to the level before his predecessor, ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Osofsky, took over. Under Osofsky, the number of criminal cases pursued by the investigator fell by half.
Ephgrave feels recruiting more permanent staff will also boost efficiencies at the organisation, which until recently had been relying on temporary workers. He told the Mail on Sunday: “Fraud wrecks lives and damages the economy. I am committed… to creating the team this country needs to tackle complex economic crime.
“Talented people from all backgrounds are inspired by our mission and are joining our ranks in numbers.”
The SFO has had an ignominious few years, in which high profile investigations into the likes of G4S and Serco collapsed due to errors made by the agency. And in August, it dropped long-running probes into Kazakh mining company ENRC and Rio Tinto.
But last month the agency made the headlines after carrying out dawn raids on addresses linked to the collapse of city law firm Axiom Ince and launched a major fraud probe into the disappearance of £66m of client money.
By Ali Lyon