The benefits of ongoing monitoring

Have you ever considered that the results of most pre-employment checks are only valid in that split second that the results are returned? By the time you have read to the end of the returned results they are already out of date. In 2021 there were over 360,000 cases of fraudulent conduct made to the Cifas Internal and National Fraud Databases. In the year to June 2021 there were 909,000 convictions in courts in England and Wales¹- an average of just under 2,500 per day. These figures show how much information is being updated on a daily basis and why the belief that because a check was once undertaken, an organisation has protected themselves against the insider threat.

Many organisations believe that they have robust checks in place as they screen at pre-employment stage, and that any additional checks are costly and time consuming. That is not the case when it comes to checking employees against the Cifas Internal and National Fraud Databases. Cifas members pay their annual subscription fee and can undertake unlimited checks* against these databases for no additional cost, and with checks being able to be carried out directly via an API, manually or as a CSV excel document upload, a check can be completed in seconds. Any matches that are returned can then be reviewed to determine if the integrity of the individual is in question or whether the member is happy for the employee to continue their employment. A match does not equal a ‘do not employ’ marker. So that clears up the concerns that it is costly or time consuming!

I recently spoke to a Cifas member who had a perfect example of the importance of ongoing monitoring…

In February 2022, we became aware that an employee of ours had three recent Cifas cases against them.

Employee A was working in a customer facing role and it was identified that they were using three known names and a number of known addresses based over 100 miles apart. All were for false applications. Our team called the organisations who recorded the cases for more information on the matches. For one of the cases, Employee A had altered the salary credit on their bank statement in order to inflate their income. They were intending to use the inflated income figure to evidence a higher annual salary from us in order to get car finance. However, the document went through verification checks and Employee A was filed to the Cifas National Fraud Database.

One of the other cases was as a result of Employee A submitting a false fraud claim. A payment had been made from their account and Employee A disputed it and advised they didn’t authorise the payment. The organisation looked into it, did not uphold it and closed the account. The final case was made since adverse credit was identified that had not been declared.

We also identified that Employee A had been abusing their position by transacting on their own account, which is against employee policy.

Employee A was suspended pending investigation. The investigation conclusion noted that there were concerns around the employee due to the Cifas cases and there was a concern that due to the adverse credit, they could be in financial distress. Upon interviewing Employee A, they advised that they knew some details about the cases. They also advised that they allowed a family member to use personal details such as name address etc and didn’t see the problem with it - he had taken photos of his ID and given the family member payslips and bank statements. Employee A handed in their notice before the disciplinary meeting.

I cannot stress the importance of using the tools that are available to protect your organisation against the Insider Threat - especially where there is no additional cost. Dishonest employees can cost an organisation tens - if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, and that’s before reputational damage is taken into account. Cifas works with our members to support them with implementing ongoing monitoring and can help you understand how this could work best for you depending on the number of employees your organisation has. If you’re an existing member, contact the Member Experience Hubto talk about how we can support your organisation against the insider threat. If you’re considering joining Cifas membership, you can make an enquiry on our website, via our Solutions for Business ‘Contact Us’ page.

*subject to fair usage policy

¹ https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-june-2021/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-june-2021-html