Cifas fraud data included in official crime statistics

The Office for National Statistics now includes fraud offences as recorded by Cifas and FFA UK in their latest England and Wales Crime Survey.

The latest Crime Survey shows that from July 2014 to June 2015 there were 599,689 fraud offences. Cifas data has contributed to these latest statistics, with Cifas members reporting 266, 701 of these confirmed fraud offences against organisations from the year July 2014 to June 2015. 

Commenting on the statistics,  Cifas Chief Executive, Simon Dukes, said: 
“Fraud is an insidious crime – thousands of people fall victim to fraud every day in the UK, and fraudsters use the money they steal to fund further crime. Businesses have been reporting fraud cases to law enforcement through Cifas and sharing fraud data for many years. Publishing this data in crime statistics today is a great step forward.

“But there is much more to do – industry and government must keep working together to report more fraud and support victims to come forward so that we can understand the true scale of this problem and work together to tackle it.” 

If you are a journalist and want to talk to Cifas about this story, please get in touch with our media team.

What is Cifas?

Cifas is a not-for profit organisation working in the UK. Our mission is to deter, detect and prevent fraud and fraud-related crime in society. We do this by harnessing data and technology and working in partnership.  

We have operated for over 27 years and have more than 330 members working with us from a variety of sectors, including major banks, building societies, insurance companies, telecommunications and public sector bodies. View a full list of Cifas members.

Cifas works on the principle that fraudsters don’t work in silos and neither can we. Cifas members record their confirmed fraud cases in our database so that other members can review relevant cases to protect people from identity theft or conduct investigations into fraud attempted against their organisation.  To read more about Cifas fraud types please see our annual report, Fraudscape.

Cifas also protects individuals who are at risk of becoming victims of fraud through our Protective Registration service. A similar scheme, Protecting the Vulnerable, is in place to ensure that some of the most vulnerable in society do not fall victim to predatory criminals.

Last year Cifas members reported preventing over £1 billion of fraud through their use of Cifas, and our confirmed fraud cases are referred to the police every day.

Why is Cifas important?

The latest stats from the ONS are important because many fraud offences were not previously included as Police Recorded Crime in the crime survey. The fact Cifas data has now been included is a step in the right direction, helping to show that fraud is not a victimless crime. Understanding the full extent of fraudulent activity is crucial in order to prevent and tackle future fraud.

Where do we go from here?

While Cifas welcomes that fraud offences are now included as Police Recorded Crime in the ONS Crime Survey we think that there is much further to go. Government must continue to work with industry and reintroduce a national measure of fraud loss so that the true scale of fraud in the UK is clear. Until we understand the full scale of the problem we won’t be able to tackle fraud effectively. The ONS stats are an important part in this process.

Read more about the true scale of fraud.

What Cifas data has been published?

For the full ONS figures on fraud please visit the ONS website.

Contact us at press@cifas.org.uk