Working for SFO
Source: gov.uk (2025-07-20)

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has developed a comprehensive four-year People Strategy to support the organisation's mission. This is a summary.

Introduction

The strategy provides a clear roadmap for investing in and supporting people to deliver the SFO’s strategic ambitions over the next four years.

It recognises that having highly skilled, engaged and motivated people creates the best opportunity to combat serious and complex fraud, bribery and corruption.

Its purpose is to deliver success for the SFO through its people, making it a great place to work where people feel valued, listened to and cared for.

The strategy aims to achieve significant overall impact by 2029.

A review will be undertaken at the beginning of year three to ensure continued alignment with organisational ambitions.

The approach recognises the specialist and unique nature of the SFO’s business, requiring collaboration between leaders, colleagues and trade unions to deliver against the strategy’s commitments.

The approach is built on professional, collaborative and innovative values, supporting our four strategic ambitions:

Maintaining a highly specialised, engaged and skilled workforce

Harnessing technology and tools of a changing world

Combating crime effectively through intelligence, enforcement and prevention

Being a proactive, authoritative player in the global and domestic justice system

There are four key delivery areas:

Attract

The SFO is committed to attracting talented, diverse, passionate and capable people to deliver services for today and the future.

Over the next four years we will develop more a sophisticated, proactive and agile talent acquisition approach. We will ensure there are diverse talent pools at all application stages.

Develop

We will continue to develop a skilled and agile workforce to meet delivery challenges, supporting leaders to inspire, understand, care for and motivate their teams.

Our vision is that by 2029, there will be a comprehensive development offering, with clearly mapped career pathways and individuals taking responsibility for their own development. Our processes will be supported with better technology, including AI capability.

Retain

The strategy drives a healthy culture where people feel engaged, connected and inspired by the mission and values.

Over the next four years, we will create an established employee experience where people feel heard and valued. Our support for people will be more strategic with even better management capabilities.

There will be an embedded performance management approach with individuals empowered to make decisions at all levels.

Include

Our commitment is to continue to build a working environment with positive and inclusive behaviours where everyone feels they belong.

We are building a truly diverse and inclusive organisation with collaboration at its heart, where individuals are confident they can openly discuss and debate issues. Our ambition is that everyone feels part of a high trust and enabling environment, where the value of all roles and contributions is recognised.

Measures of success

Our strategy will be evaluated through several key metrics, including continued improvement in key areas from engagement surveys and embedded equality, diversity and inclusion data and insights.

We will also monitor cost and time savings across different processes. There are also a range of key people metrics including tenure, sickness and time to hire.