Publication of Fighting Fraud: Breaking the Chain - Update from Mike Haley, Cifas CEO

The Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee has published its report; ‘Fighting Fraud: Breaking the Chain’, which can be found here.  Cifas provided evidence to the Committee, and we welcome the report’s findings, which provide a manifesto for change that we can all get behind.

In particular, we support the recommendations for a new cabinet-level subcommittee to tackle fraud, and for fraud to be written into the Strategic Policing Requirement - the latter echoing the findings of the recent Justice Committee Report

These two key recommendations have the power to be transformative in the fight against fraud. Delivering the structured and detailed Government focus that is required for a problem as complex as fraud, and meaning that police forces would be responsible for directing sufficient resources to investigate fraud crimes. Both elements are critical given that frauds accounts for nearly 50% of all reported crime in the UK, and causes wide-reaching harm and misery to UK citizens and businesses.

We also wholeheartedly support the report’s call for the urgent reintroduction of the Online Safety Bill to Parliament. The Bill will place regulatory requirements on search and social media platforms to more effectively tackle online fraud conducted through both paid for adverts and user generated content. We risk losing these hard-won and critical provisions if the Bill does not return to parliament soon, as parliamentary time for it is now running short.

We look forward to working with partners to further advocate for and assist in the implementation of the key recommendations in this report, which have the power to substantially move the dial for the Government and policing response to fraud.