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The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is an arm of the Government of the United Kingdom, accountable to the Attorney-General. Established by the Criminal Justice Act 1987, the Serious Fraud Office is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of suspected cases of serious or complex fraud where £1 million or more are involved or covers more than one national jurisdiction, though it is rare for cases involving less than £1 million to be taken. It has jurisdiction over England and Wales and Northern Ireland but not Scotland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, though the Serious Fraud Office's compulsory information powers contained in section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 do so under invitation from the relevant prosecuting body. The SFO normally has a caseload of 80 ongoing cases taking on around 20 new cases a year. The vast majority of fraud in the United Kingdom remains the responsibility of police forces. The SFO is not a police force and its members have no direct personal executive powers, such as the power of arrest. Each case is dealt with by a case team made up of various professionals such as lawyers, forensic accountants and police officers seconded from police forces. The police officers remain members of their relevant police force for the duration of their secondment and it is they who would arrest if the investigation required it. Only non-police members of the case team are permitted to use powers under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987.
The SFO was established in 1988 after the Roskill Report recommended that this specialist duty be taken away from normal police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service. The report came in the wake of several failed prosecutions.
The Director is Richard Alderman, a former prosecuting lawyer at the Inland Revenue, and later head of Special Civil Investigations at HM Revenue & Customs. Mr Alderman was appointed on 21 April 2008, replacing Robert Wardle.
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