Improving the local response to Fraud

Background

Perpetuity and the Police foundation are working together on a two-year project investigating the UK response to fraud. This work is founded on previous research carried out by the teams which found that a disproportionate amount of fraud is organised and that it is highly prevalent. The work showed, for example, that between a third and nearly half of all frauds occurring locally in our sample of two police force areas were linked to Organised Crime Groups, which is at least twice previous Home Office estimates.

The research also found that despite the significant and sometimes very damaging impact fraud has on communities it is not a priority for many local police forces and largely falls outside the responsibility of many agencies, including the police. This new project seeks to understand how the local response to fraud can be improved.

Project overview

The research will cover three key areas that will be examined alongside one another in order to understand how local resources should be balanced:

• Perpetrators of fraud
• Victims of fraud
• Protecting the public from fraud

This research aims to provide an overview of the current response to fraud, to understand the roles of relevant local agencies, and their relationships, and to provide recommendations for improving the response. The project will investigate:

• How information relating to fraud is gathered, shared and analysed to understand the crime, including organised fraud and cyber-enabled fraud.
• How fraudulent activity is identified, assessed and prioritised with police forces and across other agencies.
• The powers, roles and responsibilities of relevant agencies in the public, private and third sectors around tackling fraud and how these bodies work together effectively (or not).
• The resources deployed by particular agencies, how effective are these and what good practice looks like.

For further information about the project contact Josephine Ramm