The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) could become part of an FBI-style National Crime Agency (NCA) as part of the coalition Government's efforts to confront fraud costing the UK £30bn every year.

It had been expected that the Government's shake-up of UK financial regulation would see the SFO disbanded in favour of a new Economic Crime Agency (ECA).

Home Office policing minister Nick Herbert, who earlier this year took over the job of creating the ECA from the Treasury, is set to launch a long-awaited consultation in the spring on what the ECA should look like and how it will operate.

However, the consultation will now look at whether the SFO should merge into the NCA, which is set to incorporate the Serious Organised Crime Agency and Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: "While there will be two distinct bodies – the NCA and the ECA – precisely how the SFO responsibilities are allocated will depend on the consultation that is expected to begin in the next few months."

Taking the SFO out of the ECA is likely to raise questions as to the ECA's viability, as it would only consist of the policing and enforcement activity of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The Government is committed to addressing economic crime and improving capability to deal with the high end of economic criminality, including by creating world-class capabilities in complex specialist areas, such as digital forensics, disclosure management and asset recovery."

"The Government made a firm commitment in the Coalition Programme to create a single ECA to rationalise the current piecemeal enforcement. The Coalition commitment will be developed in close conjunction with the NCA, which will take the lead on organised crime.

"We will also examine whether a more effective set of tools and powers is needed to enable the criminal justice system to tackle the growing scourge of complex economic crime."

A number of lawyers have recently left the SFO, including anti-corruption team head Robert Amaee, who has joined Covington & Burling's London based white-collar defence and investigations practice, and SFO policy head Charlie Monteith, who left to join White & Case.

Addleshaw Goddard corporate crime head Elizabeth Robertson (pictured) said: "For those of us working in this field, these changes and the uncertainty in the opening – that is inevitably created for businesses we advise – is very worrying.

"There has been a lot of momentum to prosecute white collar crime, the Bribery Act is gaining momentum, and with the credit crunch there is real public appetite to deal with these things. The Government risks damaging effective prosecution of business crime if it introduces too many changes at once."

She added: "The uncertainty caused by the departures of very good lawyers and policy makers is a blow to the SFO just as it was getting into its stride. The FSA has benefited from a period of certainty and higher pay. Without this, respected regulators inevitably lose key people to private practice, which is a disaster for the effective prosecutions of serious financial crime."

"The profession and UK business deserve more certainty and guidance."