An ‘alphabet soup’ of UK Government departments, agencies and ministers have responsibility for tackling fraud. This is ineffective; it leads to inefficient policymaking and a lack of accountability in government.
That’s according to the House of Lords’ Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee report, ‘Fighting Fraud: Breaking the Chain’. It asks the Government to set up a cabinet subcommittee with a mandate to tackle fraud, chaired by and accountable to the Home Office security minister (the minister responsible for tackling fraud, Tom Tugendhat, who was among witnesses who gave evidence).
Among its conclusions, the report points out that the speed with which payments are able to be executed, while beneficial for legitimate customers, is helping fraudsters to get their hands on stolen money at pace.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes, committee chair, said: “Fraud is the most commonly experienced crime in this country. A person is more likely to be a victim of fraud than any other crime and it costs victims billions in losses, yet it is under-resourced, under-prioritised, and its impact is widely under-estimated.
“If this were any other type of crime, we would deal with it swiftly and the perpetrators would be brought to justice. Because most fraud happens online, it remains invisible and fraudsters walk away without fear of repercussions. The Government must act. Creating a Cabinet sub-committee would send a message to criminals that it takes fraud seriously. Law enforcement must prioritise fraud and we must slow down payments to give banks more time to analyse suspicious transactions.
“But payments are the last link in the fraud chain. Until all fraud-enabling industries including tech and telecoms companies fear significant financial, legal and reputational risk through new corporate criminal offences, we will never break the chain.”
The peers also want fraud to be written into the Strategic Policing Requirement, which sets out the top priorities for the police; and a single, centrally funded consumer awareness campaign, with industry. The report asked that the Online Safety Bill be brought to parliament urgently, as it contains several measures to prevent fraudulent content and scam advertising from appearing on online platforms, and to hold tech companies accountable when they fail.
While the Fraud Act is sound, due to the under-resourcing of law enforcement, many victims never see the criminals facing justice, the report said. For the full 191-page report visit parliament.uk.
Among the witnesses
Among those who gave evidence to the committee were Lord Agnew of Oulton, who last year resigned as a Treasury minister responsible for fraud prevention; Pauline Smith, Director, at the police reporting line Action Fraud; the Channel 4 presenter Joe Lycett; academics; police such as Rob Jones, Director General of the National Economic Crime Centre/Threat Leadership, National Crime Agency, who as a speaker at the annual conference of the London Fraud Forum last month is featured in the December print edition of Professional Security Magazine; and from private industry Brian Dilley, Group Director of Economic Crime Prevention, Lloyds Banking Group, and Geraldine Lawlor, Global Head of Financial Crime, KPMG LLP, and Will Semple, who leads eBay’s response to cybercrime globally.
