Andrew Durant, managing director of fraud investigations at foresenic accounting firm Navigant, said he found it ‘strange’ the new head of the SFO, Richard Alderman, wanted to concentrate on helping consumer fraud victims.

‘The SFO was given special powers for a reason ­ to tackle serious fraud. It needs to stick to its charter, otherwise who else is going to do it? It should look at high-value public interest cases.’

He warned that there was likely to be more large-scale fraud as the UK started to head for a downturn.

Durant added that the SFO’s possible change of direction could be because of other organisations’ success in tackling high-profile cases.

These include the Office of Fair Trading looking at construction companies over bid-rigging and milk price fixing, plus the City of London Police as the lead investigator for the National Fraud Strategic Authority.