The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was created by the Criminal Justice Act 1987, and is an independent government department that detects, investigates and prosecutes serious or complex fraud, under the superindendence of the attorney general. It employs around 60 lawyers. The recession, one must suspect, has been good for business.

The work is of course fascinating stuff: there is the motivation of the public interest angle, the SFO will only pursue cases of a certain value and dimension, often therefore very high-profile cases, and often at the crest of ever-changing law (e.g. European directives). In these times of globalised financial crime, there is also a strong international / multi-jurisdictional element (the SFO estimates that approximately 65% of cases have an international dimension) where liasing with supranational bodies and authorities in many national jurisdictions is commonplace.

The public interest element comes with the scrutiny and criticism that high-profile public sector work will bring.

Under recent self-reform the SFO has taken on a role as quasi-regulator as well as its other functions. The body would also be forgiven for feeling rather paranoid for being under seemingly regular Whitehall review in terms of its remit. In what has been described as a 'Whitehall turf war', there were proposals to transfer the prosecution aspect to the CPS, and investigation to a new National Crime Agency, but this seems unlikely to happen now. What is more predictable is a budget cut to £30.5m by 2014 (from a peak of £51.5m in 2008/9.)

The website (see below) list vacancies and links to the central Civil Srvice recruitment forum at http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/jobs/

Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Elm House 10-16 Elm Street London WC1X 0BJ Tel:  020 7239 7272 Email:  public.enquiries@sfo.gsi.gov.uk Link:  http://www.sfo.gov.uk