The Joint Fraud Taskforce set up by UK Government has been re-launched. The authorities said it was to reflect the rise in reported fraud cases during the covid pandemic. The ‘taskforce’ seeks to make public-private sector partnerships, such as the sharing of data about the crime, and for more support for victims.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “I am deeply concerned about the devastating impact fraud can have on victims and I will not tolerate criminals lining their pockets at the expense of law-abiding citizens. Government alone cannot fix this which is why the Joint Fraud Taskforce will bring together key business leaders to work in partnership to protect the public and tackle this cowardly crime.”
Minister for Security Damian Hinds will chair it. He said: “Fraud is a devastating crime that impacts around one in 13 of us each year, often in life-changing ways. I am pleased to be chairing this new taskforce, which will bring experts from the most vital sectors together to prevent perpetrators from exploiting vulnerabilities and fraud controls to conduct their criminality.”
A first meeting of the relaunched group saw the publishing of three fraud charters, covering telecoms, retail banking and accountancy, whereby those sectors voluntarily proposed to do various things against fraud.
Some background
The Joint Fraud Taskforce was set up in February 2016 by the then Home Secretary Theresa May. In summer 2021, the Government’s crime strategy mentioned in passing that the national police reporting centre for fraud cases, the much-condemned Action Fraud, would be replaced. In August, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) reported that in the year ending March 2021, although other crimes decreased by 19pc due to lockdown making public movement more difficult or unlawful, overall levels of crime stayed the same because of a large increase in fraud and computer misuse offences. The inspectorate found that the fundamental problem is a disparity between the amount of work fraud creates for the police, and the resources allocated.
And last month a report from the Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird suggested that 4.6 million UK people are affected by fraud each year and around 700,000 will go on to suffer profoundly as a result of their being defrauded. As the report pointed out, fraud has grown hugely in recent years and now accounts for 39pc of all crime. Yet compared with the millions of crimes, only 2pc of police resources in England and Wales are allocated to fraud, and there were fewer than 8,000 prosecutions in 2019.
More in the December 2021 print edition of Professional Security magazine.
