Alastair MacKenzie, Managing Director of AMA Associates, describes AMA?s work with the Department for Work and Pensions in training DWP staff in tackling fraud.
The Department for Work and Pensions is the largest Government department with around 125,000 staff ‘ a quarter of the civil service ‘ in 2,000 locations across the country. The department is responsible for the effective delivery of benefits through a network of offices in 13 geographical areas. The organisation administers an annual Goods & Services spend of about £3 billion. The department is committed to working closely with local authorities, the Employment Services, employers and a range of organisations that provide assistance to its customers. However, it administers a huge and complex system that is vulnerable both to error and to the unscrupulous actions of a minority. Its work of getting help to those who need it is dependent on making sure that benefits reach those who need them most, and that fraud is prevented. The investigation of fraud and abuse is a priority area. The Government has set an immediate target of halving benefit fraud, which costs an estimated £2 billion a year.
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In his foreword to the Green Paper Beating Fraud Is Everyone’s Business – Securing The Future, issued July 1998, the Prime Minister said: ‘We will work across boundaries – with all Government Departments, and with local authorities and others – to share expertise and create a professional approach to anti fraud work.’ This Green Paper set out proposals to develop a body of highly skilled counter fraud specialists capable of tackling fraud in the way other professions have applied their skills, with:
– common skill standards <br>
– common core training for all staff involved in anti-fraud work<br>
– training accreditation<br>
– continuous learning and development<br>
– common principles of good practice<br>
– common approach across central and local government, the public and areas such as the Post Office and the private sector.
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Richard Kitchen, the Head of Profession, is the DWP’s Chief Investigation Officer. He had many years experience with Customs and Excise, dealing with fraud, drugs and a range of other investigations. He is determined to set up a department with a national reputation for probity, integrity and honesty, as well as the highest standards of professionalism. The Counter Fraud Investigation Division is a department set up under the Chief Investigation Officer. This branch includes the Counter Fraud Investigation Service (CFIS) and the Counter Fraud Investigation Division ‘ Operations (CFID-Ops) who tackle major, organised fraud. The Counter-Fraud Officers (CFOs) in these organisations are responsible for the detection and investigation of benefit fraud. Local authorities (LAs) have a similar responsibility to investigate Housing Benefit fraud. Nationally there are around 5,000 staff employed within CFIS, 300 within CFID-Ops and 1,700 by LAs. Of the 7,000 total, about 4,300 are directly employed as investigators.
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Training courses
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The Division offers various training courses covering many skill areas to fraud investigators. All benefit fraud investigators go on training courses to teach or revise them in how to carry out covert surveillance operations, investigative interviews and other investigative skills. This programme of training and higher education opportunities has been developed with the University of Portsmouth to meet the Government’s aim of ‘developing a highly skilled anti-fraud profession’. The foundation level syllabuses have been developed specifically to support this aim and its wider adoption across Government has been recommended by the Inter-Ministerial Group on Welfare Fraud. All training is monitored by Peter Mills and his team at the Professional Standards Unit in Birmingham and Leamington Spa. This unit ensures that the DWP personnel are provided with the necessary training in order that staff can achieve the high level of professionalism required in the new criminal justice environment. A number of training courses are delivered by the division’s in-house training organisation; however, training in the following areas is delivered by external training organisations – surveillance; business records; criminal intelligence analysis; financial investigation; investigative interviewing; photography and driving skills.
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Training organisation
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This is where AMA Associates Ltd comes in. Sharon Ripley, AMA Business Development Manager, says: ‘As one the UK’s largest specialist security training organisations we have been providing surveillance training to the DWP or the Benefits Agency as it was previously known, for over four years. The company has been selected again, following a very comprehensive tendering process, to continue delivering all the surveillance training courses required by counter fraud investigating officers. This is a three-year contract commencing in July 2002.’ AMA Associates, based in Chorley, Lancashire, achieved ISO 9001: 2000 status in April 2002 and has some 35 trainers involved with training DWP and local authority investigators. The trainers are members of the Professional Surveillance Association (PSA). They gained their knowledge and experience in some of the toughest operational environments in the world working for the British Government. Many trainers have received medals for bravery. The training provided covers all levels of surveillance training as well as training exercises. The entry-level course is a three-day basic surveillance course and can lead to advanced specialist training courses in mobile surveillance, foot surveillance, motorcycle surveillance and the particularly testing urban and rural observation post course.
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Conditions for surveillance
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Alastair MacKenzie, Managing Director and founder of AMA Associates, says: ‘Surveillance is an intrusion into the privacy of the citizen and should not be undertaken unless it is necessary, proportionate to an alleged offence and properly authorised. Where there is an alternative legal means of obtaining the information that is less intrusive on the rights of the citizen, then that should be the course taken by fraud investigators rather than impose surveillance. However, when it is necessary to impose surveillance on a subject, we make sure that counter-fraud officers carrying out the surveillance receive the best training possible. The CFOs have a difficult and sometimes dangerous job and we provide them with the skills and competencies to impose surveillance safely and effectively.’ All surveillance imposed by CFOs is carried out strictly in line with the recent Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and the training delivered by AMA constantly emphasises the importance of correctly working to RIPA and the Home Office codes of practice.
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Inspectors from the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner (Sir Andrew Leggatt), are required to visit CFIS and CFID-Ops locations to ensure that investigators and managers are abiding by RIPA 2000 and the associated code of practice. The findings/ recommendations of the OSC are reported to Richard Kitchen and any failure of any part of the process will be brought to the attention of the relevant investigation manager. The manager concerned will then consult the Professional Standards Unit to determine what action should be taken. Wilful disregard of any part of the RIPA Code of Practice is considered a breach of the Code of Conduct and Good Practice for investigators. Sharon Ripley concludes: ‘AMA Associates is looking forward to continue working together with the DWP and local authorities. We will continue to provide challenging and educational training courses to equip fraud investigators with the surveillance skills they need in the comprehensive portfolio of competencies necessary for the ongoing battle against fraudsters.’ Write to PO Box 130, Chorley, Lancashire PR7 3GA.
