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SFO achieves 91% conviction rate - 29/07/2010

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) achieved a 91 per cent conviction rate for the year 2009-10 despite its budget being cut by a fifth.

In its latest annual report the SFO revealed that its success in the previous year is based on 13 cases involving £33.5m of victims’ losses, with each case costing the taxpayer around £0.5m. It is a 30 per cent increase on the 61 per cent success rate revealed in last years’ annual report.

The SFO managed to secure convictions against 22 defendants out of 24 tried, obtaining average sentences of 31.5 months. Confiscation orders for fraudsters’ assets leapt to 28 in 2009/10 compared to 12 in the previous year, while production orders, which require banks to produce information about an individual’s financial dealings, rocketed to 63, compared to four in 2008/09. The SFO also revealed that at any one time the organisation is investigating instances of economic crime worth £6bn.

However, SFO director Richard Alderman acknowledged in the report that the organisation faced a challenging year ahead with further budget cuts and pressure created by government plans to set up an economic crime agency.

Alderman said: "In the coming year the SFO will play the part society expects of us to the full. Indeed, plans to create an economic crime agency will require more of us and different ways of working.

"Important though the conviction rate is as a measure of success, it is only one indicator of our effectiveness. In the cases we bring to court we seek to deter fraudsters by prosecuting those who live off hard working or vulnerable people.

The organisation’s caseload averaged 86 last year, compared to 65 cases when Alderman was appointed in April 2008. At the same time the SFO also reduced its total resource budget from £51.5m to £39.6m, and will reduce it again to £34.1m in the coming year.

Phillippa Williamson, chief executive of the SFO, added: "We are conscious about every pound that we spend – it is taxpayers’ money and we must spend it wisely.

"We know that we need to strike the right balance between costs and outcomes for society. With this in mind, our strategy introduces new ways of working to achieve more for less."