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The UK Serious Fraud Office has been given an extra £9.3mn of funding to improve its case management and evidence handling, as part of the government’s attempt to crack down on financial crime.
The majority of the money — £8.3mn — will be used to reform the way the agency tracks the progress of its cases, the Attorney General’s Office told the Financial Times. A new confiscation team will also be set up to help recover assets from convicted individuals.
The UK prosecutor, which is tasked with tackling complex fraud, bribery and corruption, has long grappled with a lack of resources as it attempts to take on wealthy individuals with deep pockets willing to engage in long court battles. The average SFO case takes more than four years from investigation to the first outcome and involves 5mn documents.
The money will bolster the SFO’s annual budget next year, which now stands at £88.9mn for 2025-26. The agency’s budget is always made up of core funding plus an additional amount, which changes year-to-year, to handle large cases.
The SFO’s current caseload includes a bribery investigation into Glencore, which saw the agency charge six former employees this year, and a probe of collapsed café chain Patisserie Valerie over accounting practices.
“This government is committed to cracking down on fraud and this additional funding will modernise SFO’s services, improve their disclosure practices, and build their capabilities to seize assets and make significant returns to the taxpayer,” Richard Hermer, attorney-general for England and Wales, said in a statement.
The additional funding for the agency’s evidence software comes after the prosecutor faced criticism over its disclosure practices.
The SFO uncovered problems with its disclosure technology earlier this year that forced it to review past and present cases. Although the review is still ongoing, SFO director Nick Ephgrave told the FT in September that no issues had been uncovered to date.
Separately, the SFO is on the hook to pay potentially millions of pounds in damages to Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation over its handling of a criminal probe into the Kazakh mining group. The agency has set aside more than £200mn to cover the litigation.
The UK government also said this week that it has provided additional funding for the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales to help ease pressures on the criminal justice system, which is facing a record backlog of court cases.
The CPS will be handed £49mn to support victims of crime, improve services, and increase staff numbers working on rape and serious sexual offence cases, the Attorney General’s Office’s said.