Wherever you stand on the plea bargain debate, this week’s pictures of Conrad Black reporting to a Florida jail remind us that they work. But while the US steams ahead in calling serious fraudsters to account, alarming reports suggest the UK is still dragging its feet.

Black’s conviction and subsequent six-and-a-half-year sentence resulted from a plea bargain struck by his former lieutenant David Radler, who received a lighter punishment in exchange for admitting guilt and helping the prosecution’s case against his old boss.

At the request of the Attorney-General, a group of British judges, lawyers and prosecutors have spent two years hammering out the finer details of how to introduce a similar system here. Reports this week suggest that those plans – “fraught with difficulty” and “pretty much a waste of time”, according to insiders – may come to nothing when the Attorney-General’s office reports on the working group’s progress in the spring.

This would be a wasted opportunity. Plea bargains, properly introduced with appropriate checks and balances, bring advantages that could help close the substantial gap that exists in the prosecution of serious fraud in the UK.

But the reason the talks are said to be stalling is particularly frustrating. Insiders said the plans may be abandoned because of questions over what to do when they go wrong. This is a genuine issue but it is also shows a backward way of thinking.

The problem arises when someone admits to an offence in return for a lesser, fixed sentence but the plea bargain subsequently collapses. This presents an important legal problem: if someone admits their guilt as part of a deal that later turns sour, how can they stand trial and put up a fair defence?

But this would be unusual and measures can be introduced to keep it to a minimum. Plea bargains have been shown to work in the US and could provide a stimulus towards better prosecution of fraud, which everyone in the UK agrees is necessary. Conviction rates for serious fraud are disappointingly low. Ideally, all criminals would be punished to the fullest extent of the law, but in practice prosecutors must do what they can with the resources they have.

It would be naïve to say plea bargains are a faultless panacea that will result in a 100 per cent conviction rate, but they may well improve the situation. Surely it is worth pushing ahead.

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