Focusing in on white-collar crime

The government is considering plans to merge the Serious Fraud Office with a proposed National Crime Agency in the fight against corporate corruption. The merger, which will be consulted on in the spring, would tackle the issue of fraud which costs the UK around £30bn a year and which Nick Herbert, the policing minister, said had hiterto been ignored. Speaking to the Financial Times, Herbert said the Home Office had also taken over a project from the Treasury to create a single Economic Crime Agency (ECA), which would tackle a "piecemeal" approach to white-collar crime and could also be incorporated into the new National Crime Agency (NCA). Plans for the ECA are due to be drafted by this summer. "As the department with the role of crime-fighting, it is right that the Home Office should be focused on economic crime. There has not been that focus until now," Herbert said. Last year, government plans to bring together the law enforcement powers of the SFO, the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services authority (due to be scrapped by 2012) to aid investigations into bribery, fraud and insider trading but was criticised by lawyers and accountants over how a 'super-agency' would be organised. Herbert said the City of London police, who were criticised for their efforts in tackling corporate crime but remain the leading anti-fraud police force, would continue in that role if a new NCA is established. "Being a police officer, I have no problem with the Home Office taking the lead on economic crime, but this isn't just about enforcement and policing," said Adrian Leppard, City police's new chief commissioner. "[But] there is a regulation role and a very close relation with industry," he said.