KEY POINTS:
Having survived a threat to its existence, it might be expected the Serious Fraud Office could face the future certain of its role and confident of reinvigoration. Instead, it is embroiled in a turf war with the police and under the wing of a new Police Minister who seems not to want to acknowledge the problem. At a time of economic fragility, normally the busiest of periods for fraud detection, this discord is highly undesirable.
The problem stems from the previous Government's wish, for no cogent reason, to absorb the SFO into a new police unit, the Organised and Financial Crime Agency. That agency's main focus was to be gang activity, as part of a strategy of getting tough on organised crime. White-collar crime, the SFO's bailiwick, would be very much an afterthought. Indeed, the sophisticated and complex nature of fraud meant there was no way it would receive the specialist attention provided by the SFO.
A change of Government has saved the SFO. But the police agency clearly has no intention of voluntarily relinquishing the financial-crime function handed it in July. This creates the absurd situation of two units paddling in the same pool. The potential for duplication and tripping over each other, especially when there is competition to be the top dog, is obvious. Police Minister Judith Collins says, however, that she has no plans to intervene. "It is a police operation. I'm not really into micromanaging what the police do," she says.
This is lame. Governments oversee the setting up, roles and disestablishment of units such as the SFO. This one has also had much to say about the wasting of public service resources and the need to cut spending. The police agency should have the word 'financial' removed from its name and be given the task of tackling gang activity, as originally intended. It will have its hands full. The SFO, for its part, should be doing what it has always done.
