The Home Office has published the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025 (the “Strategy”). The Strategy is aimed at reducing the harm caused by corruption to growth, security and democracy in the UK , and to UK interests overseas.
Corruption is antithetical to independence and democracy, and no country is immune from it. The effects of corruption are wide-ranging, from facilitating organised criminal activity and the supply of illicit goods, to undermining competition, independent governance and the rule of law, to damaging a country’s international reputation and trade. Combatting corruption is a worthy and vital focus for the UK in achieving its strategy for growth and increasing the welfare of its citizens.
The UK Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025 (released on 8 December 2025) sets out to do just that. It contains 123 commitments across government, each aimed at:
- Combatting corrupt actors and their funds in the UK and overseas.
- Tackling the UK’s vulnerabilities to corruption.
- Building global resilience to corruption.
Below is a brief insight into where the UK currently stands on bribery and corruption, highlighting some of the key commitments set out in the Strategy, and a critical comparison with the higher-level 2017-2022 strategy.
The Current Situation – Perceptions, Statistics, and Vulnerabilities
Despite its global reputation for commitment to the rule of law, the UK currently holds its lowest ever ranking on Transparency International’s Global Corruption Perceptions Index – at 20th in the world (tied with Japan, and well behind countries such as Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, Uruguay, Estonia, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and all Scandinavian countries).
Statistics show that UK businesses, and the public at large, remain concerned about the impacts of corrupt actors on national security, the housing market, and among public sector employees and politicians. 7% of internationally trading UK businesses believe they have lost a business opportunity overseas to competitors offering bribes in the previous 12 months. The Home Office Economic Crime Survey 2024 found that businesses had been offered an estimated total of 117,000 bribes by other UK businesses or individuals during that time period, worth a cumulative total of over £300 million. Research by the NCA assessed that it was feasible that over £100 billion is laundered through the UK each year.
The above perceptions are well founded. While corruption is, by its nature, difficult to detect and quantify, the UK has particular vulnerabilities to corruption. As a global financial centre, the UK poses an attractive target to corrupt actors seeking to secure business opportunities and investment through bribes, launder their illicit funds, and distort market conditions. The UK’s stance on bribery and corruption therefore stands to impact integrity and safety, both domestically and overseas.
Key commitments set out in the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy
The Strategy is aimed directly at combating these threats and reducing the UK’s vulnerabilities to corruption. It seeks to do so through 123 commitments, each targeted at the three “Pillars” set out above (combatting corrupt actors, tackling the UK’s vulnerabilities, and building resilience).
Notable (and more tangible) commitments include the following:
- Expanding the Domestic Corruption Unit (DCU) in the City of London Police. In 2024, a pilot DCU was introduced in the City of London Police, aimed at better understanding and responding to domestic corruption through dedicated intelligence, improved insight on domestic corruption, and supporting regional and local police forces to progress these cases. In its first year, the DCU processed over 70 referrals. The Strategy commits to expanding the DCU to investigate national and regional corruption cases in the UK, alongside parallel commitments to strengthen economic crime enforcement through funding reviews.
- Increased use of AI and machine learning. The Strategy aims to speed up SFO investigations through the use of AI and machine learning, sharing lessons learned in this process for wider implementation across the system. A pilot artificial intelligence corruption investigation assistant will also be trialed within Regional Organised Crime Units and local forces working on corruption cases.
- Abolishing the common law offence of Misconduct in Public Office. Following Law Commission recommendations, the Strategy commits to abolishing the common law offence of Misconduct in Public Office and replacing it with two new statutory offences of breach of duty in a public office, and seriously improper acts in public office.
- Reforming AML/CTF supervision. As the Government announced in October 2025, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will take over supervision of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing in professional bodies, rather than the 22 professional services bodies currently charged with doing so. This shift is intended to simplify the supervisory regime and increase consistency, transparency, and effectiveness.
- Expanding the use of sanctions. The Strategy commits to expanding and strengthening the UK’s sanctions system, with a view to identifying corrupt actors with a significant UK nexus, and their wider networks, and making the UK a more hostile environment for corrupt actors. The Strategy proposes to combine a wider domestic application with working closely with countries affected by corruption to support their domestic responses.
- Increase corporate self-reporting. The SFO will lead the Strategy’s commitment to clarify and strengthen the incentives for corporate self-reporting of bribery and corruption, by implementing the SFO’s External Guidance on Corporate Co-operation and Enforcement.
- The Ethics and Integrity Commission. The Strategy commits to establishing an Ethics and Integrity Commission to strengthen and reform the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and create an authoritative body mandated to increase ethical standards across the public sector.
- Public Office (Accountability) Bill. The Strategy proposes to implement the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, designed to ensure openness and transparency across the public sector, including ensuring that all public bodies have a code of ethical conduct.
- Increase funding to civil society and investigative journalists. The Strategy commits to providing funding, and a series of strategic dialogues, to civil society and investigative journalists, recognizing the vital role they play in identifying corruption and illicit finance that may be missed by law enforcement and regulators.
The Strategy contains an “Outcomes Framework” at Appendix B, by which the success of its objectives can be measured.
A comparison with the 2017-2022 strategy
The Strategy expressly aims to build on the 2017-2022 strategy, which was a more concise, higher-level strategy focused on longer-term outcomes. The Strategy represents a more granular set of commitments to tackling bribery and corruption, with clearer and more detailed operational objectives and metrics than its predecessor. Reforms such as those to the AML/CFT regime, and to expanding the DCU, represent commitments to deeper institutional reforms. The increased use of AI in investigations is an inevitable but welcome upgrade – it will be equally inevitable that corrupt actors will be doing the same. These are positive steps towards more tangible outcomes.
Nevertheless, the Strategy still represents a series of commitments that are easy to write and difficult to achieve, and are often quite carefully non-committal. Many involve commitments to “review”, to “consider”, to “explore”, and to “pursue” various goals – the extent to which these undertakings will be honoured may be as difficult to measure as the problem itself. Ultimately, much will turn on whether the Strategy results in adequate resourcing being allocated where it is needed most, such as in strengthening economic crime enforcement, an area that has been chronically under-resourced in the UK.[1]
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[1] J Bolton-Jones “Introducing Spotlight’s new Anti-Corruption Enforcement Tracker”, Spotlight on Corruption, 10 April 2025, accessible here.
