Eliza Lockhart

Only 5 per cent of Serious Fraud Office investigations come from whistleblowers; in contrast, in 2022, 86 per cent of penalties imposed by one US enforcement agency originated from whistleblowers. Nick Ephgrave, the director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), has attributed this difference to the financial incentives available in the US. Without any incentive to blow the whistle in the UK, hundreds of whistleblowers go abroad, meaning that “we don’t deliver the same level of money back to the UK Treasury to fund the things we all care about … the health service, fixing potholes in the road, defence”... Ephgrave made his observations at the launch of a research paper last month from the Royal United Services Institute that considered whistleblower reward programmes in the US and Canada and evaluated them against historic concerns about such schemes. Ephgrave described the research as presenting an “unanswerable case” for reform.

Ephgrave said he was baffled why criminals can be paid to give evidence but it is considered "not British" to pay potentially law abiding citizens to solve serious financial crime. The former senior police officer told a news conference at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank on Tuesday that a new report, opens new tab presented a strong case for reform. "Many hundreds of whistleblowers have chosen to go abroad to blow the whistle because there is simply no incentive for them to do that here ... That means we don't get the benefit of bringing those individuals, those corporations to justice in this country," he said.

A new report by the Royal United Services Institute, due to be published this week, will argue that launching an effective whistleblower payments programme could play a “pivotal role” in reducing white-collar offences.