In the past few weeks there has been a flurry of national and international policy developments that have the potential to strengthen our approach to policing fraud. First, the Home Office published its much-anticipated white paper – From Local to National: A New Model for Policing – which proposes a host of radical reforms, most notably a reduction in the number of police forces and the introduction of a National Police Service to consolidate specialist capability and bring coherence to the police response to cross border crimes such as fraud. Second, the government has published a revised national fraud strategy, with notable commitments including a new online crime centre to integrate data and intelligence from across sectors (notably private industry), an INTERPOL-led international taskforce for disrupting transnational fraudsters, the launch of a new streamlined reporting service (Report Fraud), and a victims’ charter to introduce minimum standards of victim care. And third, the UNODC in Vienna hosted the second Global Fraud Summit, a call to action for international law enforcement authorities and key stakeholders from private industry.

In this blog I will reflect on these current developments, focusing on our work at the Police Foundation to build understanding of the fraud problem and responses to it in the UK, with particular regard to several recent projects:

• Authoring a flagship document for the UNODC which sets out key principles to guide the public authorities on the design and governance of public-private partnerships for tackling organised fraud.
• Ongoing research, in partnership with ICPR at University of London, Birkbeck, to examine the systems in place for delivering law enforcement responses to organised fraud in the UK and overseas.
• And research which explores the health impact of fraud on individual victims, and current systems for delivering support to help victims recover from the experience.

Despite considerable reform in the English and Welsh police system for tackling fraud in the past 15 years, the service continues to fall far short of public expectation, particularly in terms of its capacity to deliver effective law enforcement and victim care. Moreover, fraud remains one of the most pervasive crimes in England and Wales; recent data shows that in a single year 4.2 million fraud incidents were experienced by individuals and 389,000 businesses (27%) experienced a fraud. Recent policy developments seek to address several key structural challenges that have confounded the policing of fraud:

• A fragmented police response system, poorly aligned to a problem that seamlessly crosses police force and national borders; the more confined a police jurisdiction, the more readily a fraud stretches beyond its reach. Moreover, the challenge to coordinate responses across a system in which agencies are guided by local priorities and concerns that often exclude fraud.
• A misalignment between the capabilities required to investigate fraud, and those that are available to policing. The police have not chosen to invest in building specialist resources for investigating fraud, meaning most cases are assigned to teams in mainstream policing that lack the confidence, capability and perceived remit to effectively investigate fraud.
• A victim service that is poorly aligned to the harms. This in part relates to a culture and attitude across society that lacks the understanding of fraud and minimises the harms experienced by its victims (i.e. it’s a victimless crime), but also a confused national response landscape in which the roles and responsibilities for supporting victims are ambiguous. Most victims are offered a very low baseline of victim care or support.
• A fraud problem that exceeds the reach and influence of policing in the UK, particularly in addressing some of the most serious international offenders and organised crime groups that are targeting victims in the UK. Law enforcement responses are overwhelmingly reactive, often addressing the lowest hanging fruit instead of seeking to proactively target, investigate and disrupt the most serious offenders.

With new policy developments meriting cautious optimism for a step change in the UK approach for tackling fraud, the signals are promising; it was not so long ago that we didn’t even have a national strategy for addressing fraud. However, there are several points to consider when observing how these principles and commitments translate into a service that can be perceived and felt by the public.

First, in the context of victim care and protection, we should not let systems overshadow the provision of meaningful public service. In the past, the practical requirement for national reporting, data systems and coordination overlooked the diverse personal needs and lived experiences of victims living locally. In managing such high volumes of reports, impersonal management systems strain to deliver services in ways that are sensitive to the needs of individuals, which is of particular concern for the most vulnerable and impacted victims. Where we set the baseline for victim care is important, but it is equally important to know when this baseline is unlikely to be sufficient to protect and support a victim’s recovery.

Second, while there is a clear necessity to expand on existing specialist investigative capability available to UK policing, the sheer volume of fraud is likely to require more versatile responses which includes leveraging resources from across the wider policing system. In concentrating the remit into dedicated fraud investigations teams, the risk is they become overwhelmed by the volume of reported cases. This raises questions about the baseline of capability that is required across mainstream policing, and the ability of crime and intelligence systems to understand and rationalise the demand for investigation to ensure cases are optimally assigned. Not all fraud is complex and international.

Third, and related to the above point, we should not let the substantive international component detract from efforts to address fraud perpetrated from within the UK. This includes opportunistic as well as organised criminals that operate wholly or partly from within our own borders; key examples come in the shape of boiler rooms mis-selling of goods or services to the public, corrupted professionals and businesses that abuse a legitimate position, or conventional street criminals that turn to cyber-fraud as a source of criminal profit.

Fourth, disruption is a central pillar of our strategic response to the fraud problem, which incorporates a range of interventions intended to incapacitate the most serious and determined fraud offenders. This can be vital in preventing victimisation and harm to the public. However, disruption is a catch-all term for a very diverse set of responses, and not all are equally effective in suppressing fraud offending or related harms. It is important that we effectively account for the impact of disruption activity, and that it is used to supplement rather than replace law enforcement action, particularly when tackling the most determined offenders.

And fifth, it is clear there are limits to police influence over fraud offending rates within the UK, and that the effectiveness of our strategic responses relies on multi-sectoral cooperation, including with overseas authorities and private industry bodies that govern the systems exploited by offenders (e.g. financial services and technology platforms). Partnerships require considerable investment in time and resource to cultivate relationships and effective governance, to build trust and encourage meaningful engagement from relevant bodies, each with their own priorities, interests and capabilities. The value of partnerships such as the online crime centre will depend on which partnerships can be leveraged and in what ways.

To sum up, there has been a host of promising policy developments introduced over the past few weeks. Calibration is key, to ensure that all the moving parts of a complex and multi-faceted problem like fraud are addressed in coordination. Monitoring and reporting of recently announced developments will be important – how they are implemented and the outcomes achieved in terms of value added for the public. Ultimately, an effective police response to fraud rests in part on our ability to implement effective strategic crime prevention – less fraud means less demand for the police to manage, and potentially fewer hard choices to make along the way.