Key Takeaways from the SFO’s Five-Year Strategy

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) published its strategy for 2024–2029 on 18 April 2024, outlining its ambitious plans to become the “pre-eminent specialist, innovative and collaborative agency” in the fight against serious and complex fraud, bribery and corruption.

In his foreword, Nick Ephgrave, who began his tenure as SFO Director in September 2023, flagged that the threat posed by fraud is greater than ever, requiring the SFO to play a greater role and be seen as a “strong, dynamic, confident and pragmatic” organisation in doing so. The SFO’s strategy is organised around the following four central objectives, each with specific steps that the SFO intends to undertake as part of its business plan for 2024–2025:

1. Having a highly specialised, engaged and skilled workforce
2. Harnessing the technology and tools of a changing world
3. Combatting crime effectively through intelligence, enforcement and prevention
4. Being a proactive, authoritative player in the global and domestic justice system

Having a highly specialised, engaged and skilled workforce

Fundamental to the SFO’s strategy is the need to recruit and retain skilled staff. To meet its workforce objective, the SFO states that it will (among other things):

• Build the resilience of its operating model by developing a five-year strategic workforce plan
• Design a new Employee Value Proposition and develop its overall benefits package
• Strengthen learning and development by launching an ambitious strategy and establishing an in-house academy

Harnessing the technology and tools of a changing world

The SFO recognises that technology presents both challenges and opportunities in combatting crime. Criminals are using new and emerging technologies, such as cryptoassets and AI-generated content, to commit serious crime and avoid detection. Yet, technological advancements can enable the SFO to manage its casework more efficiently and support its investigators and prosecutors. In order to “stay ahead of the curve”, the SFO states that it will (among other things):

• Strengthen its ability to monitor and forecast developments in technology
• Trial new and innovative tools
• Focus resource on developing its use of machine-learning and AI for more mechanical and administrative tasks
• Adopt a new case management system to streamline its casework

Combatting crime effectively through intelligence, enforcement and prevention

The SFO recognises that it needs to shorten its case timeframes—both in terms of gathering evidence and building its case, as well as opting for alternatives to formal prosecution, such as Deferred Prosecution Agreements, where appropriate. The SFO appears to be focused on making the best use of the “covert powers” available to the SFO and its partners, including the National Crime Agency and City of London Police, deepening its use of intelligence and expanding its crime prevention activities. The SFO states that it will undertake a number of actions in this regard, including:

• Testing new prevention measures through a pilot programme, working with its partners and the private sector to “cut serious fraud, bribery and corruption at the source”
• Continuing to push for a disclosure regime that is “fit for today’s challenges”
• Exploring options for incentivising whistleblowers, working with UK and overseas partners
• Maximising the use of its existing tools to assist companies with self-reporting and working with other law enforcement agencies on “covert” capabilities

The strategy also notes the SFO’s readiness to work with government to suggest new powers or changes to the wider system to ensure the SFO can drive its cases quickly and efficiently.

Being a proactive, authoritative player in the global and domestic justice system

The SFO aims to continue collaborating with its international and domestic partners, building strong relationships and sharing skills to make that collaboration as easy as possible. It proposes to do this by:

• Formalising its specialist training programme for its domestic and international partners
• Developing a “comprehensive secondment programme across law enforcement and criminal justice”
• Supporting the UK’s upcoming inspection by the Financial Action Taskforce, the intergovernmental organisation tasked with combatting money laundering and terrorist financing
• Building the UK’s role within the OECD working group on bribery

Notably, the SFO will also seek to strengthen its operations through the deployment of new powers, including the new “failure to prevent fraud” offence introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (“ECCTA”). ECCTA also extended the SFO’s pre-investigation powers of compulsion and introduced significant changes to the rules governing corporate criminal liability for certain economic offences. For more on ECCTA, see our previous Q&A update.

Comment

As with any plan, its success will come down to implementation. The SFO’s strategy document describes its plans in broad terms, and it remains to be seen how the SFO will hone in and implement its objectives and actions in practice.

A key issue, which is not addressed in the strategy directly, is the question of funding. Ultimately, the SFO’s ambitions to “attract and retain the brightest and best” staff and “be at the forefront of technological developments” will likely require robust funding. The SFO does apply for “blockbuster” funding for individual cases, but we expect the SFO to increase its core funding too.

Having said this, the SFO’s legislative arsenal has undoubtedly increased over the last 12 months. As mentioned above, the SFO now has expanded pre-investigation powers, the new “failure to prevent fraud” offence, and an expanded identification doctrine that will potentially help overcome previous difficulties in establishing liability. The sooner the SFO can provide guidance and clarify its prosecutorial approach around these new legal developments, the sooner it will be able to meet its objectives under its five-year plan.

While it is still early days, Ephgrave has demonstrated his willingness and ability to drive the SFO’s agenda and debate around key issues impacting the SFO. Key elements of Ephgrave’s inaugural public speech in February 2024 focused on incentivising whistleblowers and ensuring the SFO is seen as a key partner for international and domestic collaboration (see our previous update for more), both of which have been highlighted in the SFO’s five-year strategy. In line with the SFO’s readiness to suggest “changes to the wider system”, Ephgrave has also been vocal in his support of a new disclosure regime that in his words, “works for the digital age and ultimately speeds up case outcomes”, another point that has been picked up in the SFO’s strategy. An independent review of disclosure and fraud offences is currently underway, which may well support his calls for change.