Colborn’s Corner – Who can you trust these days?

The recent conviction of Graham Price, the Halifax IOU fraudster has doubtless rung alarm bells amongst certain financial institutions, but what did it do for us in HR?

For those not up to speed with the story, Graham Price was a financial consultant who also ran a small counter service for Halifax Bank. At Swansea Crown Court he was recently sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for theft after admitting stealing around £10 million from the Halifax and a number of small investors. It has been reported that the auditors from the Halifax found a note in his safe with the admission: “I have borrowed £7m from the Halifax.”

Auditing financial advisors is rarely part of HR’s role, and my expectation is that Mr Price was not vetted by any sort of HR procedure as he was running his own business. But what can we learn from this? How do we assess trust in our businesses?