Cross-Government Anti-Corruption Plan (UK0047)

The UK’s work so far has sought to address corruption both at home and abroad. The UK government takes the issue of preventing and dealing with corruption where it occurs - both at home and overseas – very seriously. Over recent years, the UK has taken a number of steps to deal with corruption and we have good structures and legislation already in place including:
- the Bribery Act (2010) which is a world-leading piece of legislation reforming criminal law to provide a new, modern and comprehensive scheme of bribery offences and including a new offence of failure by a commercial organisation to prevent a bribe being paid for or on its behalf
- the introduction of Deferred Prosecution Agreements as an additional tool to help prosecutors deal with bribery and corruption in large companies
- the appointment of a government Anti-Corruption Champion covering both domestic and international affairs
- two Department for International Development (DFID)-funded police units, one in the Metropolitan Police investigating money stolen from developing countries and laundered through the UK, and another unit in the City of London Police tackling bribery by UK companies and nationals in developing countries
- steps taken to tackle abuse of the LIBOR mechanism
- creation of the National Crime Agency which has the role and remit to lead, support and direct other agencies to tackle serious and organised fraud, bribery and corruption
- publication of the new Serious and Organised Crime Strategy, which sets out how we will
make the UK a more hostile place for bribery and corruption; the strategy makes it clear that the Home Office will take a new lead role in coordinating all domestic bribery and corruption policy, working with the Cabinet Office and DFID to align this with work on corruption overseas
- the creation in 2012 of a UK Asset Recovery Task Force to gather evidence, trace assets
and pursue legal cases to return money stolen and laundered through the UK by the former
regimes of the Arab Spring countries
Even with this activity taking place, we recognise that there is more that can be done to improve our standing at home and to better manage our reputation for dealing with corruption and bribery offences overseas. To do this, the UK government will for the first time bring together all of the UK’s anti-corruption efforts under one cross-government anti-corruption plan. The plan will bring greater coordination and effectiveness to the UK’s efforts to tackle corruption both domestically and internationally, across government and its agencies, and with civil society, business and international institutions. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) will be consulted for their views on the content of the plan.
The plan will include a range of measures that the UK will take to prevent corruption and
enforce relevant legislation. For example, once refreshed EU rules are in place – whereby we are already required to exclude suppliers for bribery and corruption – we will reconsider:
- the potential benefits and disadvantages of a register of excluded suppliers
- implementing and enforcing the UK Bribery Act by resourcing enforcement agencies and
ensuring effective reporting processes
- tackling money laundering through international collaboration
The UK government will also build on good progress made so far, by continuing to work with the UK’s Overseas Territories to extend to them the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention. The Home Office will provide the coordination function across government which will report jointly to the Home Secretary and the government’s Anti Corruption Champion.