Question to the Attorney General:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the performance of the Serious Fraud Office.

The current Director has returned the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to its original role and purpose of tackling the topmost tier of fraud, bribery and corruption cases with a greater emphasis on those that harm the UK’s reputation as a safe place to do business.

The follow-up report to the 2012 inspection carried out by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate was published in November 2014. It provides a snapshot of the SFO in 2013 and made clear that a “considerable amount of work had been done” to address the recommendations of the inspection, and that “There has been genuine commitment from managers and staff alike to review and update processes and structures and to improve every aspect of case handling, from intelligence gathering and analysis, to casework management and disclosure handling”.