The Government is providing £30m to City of London Police (CoLP) over the next three years, to support the upgrade in the Action Fraud service. That’s among the remarks in the Government Response to last autumn’s parliamentary report – Fraud and the Justice System: the Justice Committee’s Fourth Report of Session 2022–23.
The original report by the Justice Committee was just one of many to point to widespread shortcomings in how the UK authorities take in reports, investigate and prosecute frauds – indeed, the Tony Blair Foundation think-tank suggested that the many such reports were getting in the way of actual remedies.
Staying with the much-derided national Action Fraud service, that takes in online and over the phone the public’s reports of frauds, the Government promised in 2023, ‘a new, user-friendly, accessible reporting tool and website will be launched, offering an improved victim experience and simpler pathways to access further support and guidance. It will crucially improve: the ease of reporting; quality and validation of data; timeliness of the reports from the public; and provide law enforcement the intelligence they need to investigate and disrupt more fraudsters.’
As a further sign of how Action Fraud is not leaving the public waiting, the response said in more detail that a ‘new automated SMS feature will send victims waiting in a call queue a direct link to the new website as an alternative reporting option’; besides a new chat bot. It’s part of what the Government response termed ‘a modern victim experience’.
As for policing priorities – junior Home Office minister Chris Philp made no mention of fraud when reporting to Parliament the 2023-24 proposed police funding – the response stated that Home Office ministers are considering a revised SPR [Strategic Policing Requirement] ‘and we are hopeful any new SPR will be stronger on fraud capabilities’.
On funding, the response stated that as part of the ‘Police Uplift Programme’, 725 posts have been dedicated to tacking Serious Organised Crime (including fraud). The response batted back a committee call for economic crime courts, while acknowledging ‘delays to justice’, in the criminal justice system generally and including fraud.
The Government agreed on the need for ‘a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector to better protect the public and businesses from fraud, reduce the impact of fraud on victims, and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters’. Hence the Home Office’s Joint Fraud Taskforce; and the promise of a new strategy, to be published shortly. A (voluntary) tech and online charter with industry, is promised about fraud next year.
On raising public awareness of the crime, the response said that a new ‘public engagement team’ at the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC, part of the National Crime Agency), ‘to drive work across the public and private sectors to coordinate anti-fraud communications’.
And as for the sharing of data to better tackle frauds, the response pointed to the Department for Culture (DCMS)-led Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, to ‘make it easier for businesses to share information under GDPR for the purposes of preventing economic crime’; and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill.
Comment
Mike Haley, CEO of the counter-fraud trade association Cifas, pictured, said: “In particular, I welcome the recommendation that the Government should review current data-sharing legislation to ensure it can be quickly utilised to combat the growing threat of fraud.
“The announcement that the Home Office is currently considering revising the Strategic Policing Requirement (SPR) to include fraud is a positive step forward. This is particularly important as fraud accounts for over 40 per cent of all crime but receives only around 2pc of police funding. It is critical that this is delivered if forces are to be held accountable for allocating sufficient resource to effectively begin to protect the public from the serious and devastating consequences of fraud.
“We recognise the importance of training to ensure that the police and other frontline staff are able to more effectively tackle the changing fraud and financial crime threats that lie ahead. Cifas is committed to helping businesses better protect themselves by making their staff the first line of defence against fraud. We do this by combining our data-led intelligence along with delivering the skills and knowledge to combat the ever-changing fraud landscape.”
