FAQs

What benefits is the NFIB bringing to the public and private sector?

NFIB intelligence will be used to create a better overall picture of fraud across the country for both law enforcement and the public and private sector. This will include:

• Identifying volume and value of confirmed fraud crimes in the UK
• Identifying geographical fraud hot spots
• Mapping areas where specific types of frauds are occurring
• Providing intelligence linked to Organised Crime Groups operating in different parts of the country
• Providing regular fraud alerts to help the public and private sector become more fraud resistant

What benefit is it bringing to police forces?

The NFIB is taking reports of fraud from organisations and members of the public, which would not normally have been seen by the police. It is therefore providing valuable intelligence for forces which might previously have taken many analysts hours/days to identify. In addition, by looking across many individual fraud datasets, it is establishing links between fraudsters and their criminal activities, which may not have been identified by the individual organisations subject to the fraud. This is helping identify fraudsters that have previously avoided detection by flying underneath the radar. This provides forces with a more complete set of information than would previously be the case, which has a considerable impact on the investigator time required to develop a fraud case.

In addition, encouraging members of the public to make certain fraud reports direct to Action Fraud, rather than individual police force, is saving the time needed to record those frauds at the police station front office. Once the Police National Database goes live, the NFIB will get details of all fraud crime reports that continue to be recorded by individual forces. This enables the team to be proactive and provide forces with specific tailored intelligence about the individuals they have already captured within their crime systems – this additional intelligence should help investigators develop better informed cases.

How are police resources able to cope with the additional fraud reports and intelligence generated by the NFIB – especially with cuts in public spending on the horizon?

The NFIB is concentrating on those cases that meet set criteria for further assessment and allocation and add real value to forces. The volume of packages passed to any one force is not excessive but has the potential to assist forces, which can then respond with a range of options. 

Assigning police resources to conduct a full criminal investigation is just one option. Other options include the use of disruption and prevention tactics.

Police forces set their own policing priorities, and it is for each chief officer to determine how their force responds to the fraud reports and intelligence they receive from the NFIB, based on a range of factors. These include an assessment of the most appropriate response and the availability of resources.

Is it really a good idea to start counting all this fraud?

Understanding what crimes are happening, when, where and to whom, coupled with who is committing the crime, is the vital knowledge law enforcement agencies need to tackle fraud. It helps law enforcement to assess crime problems and decide an appropriate response. This knowledge also helps communities understand the demands on their police force. Ignoring the large volume of fraud that is known to have occurred but not reported to the police would risk distorting the true picture of fraud in the United Kingdom, fail to show the demand on the police and result in offenders escaping justice. It would also deprive public and private sector organisations of vital intelligence that would give them a better understanding of the threat posed and the measures that need to be taken to make the UK more resistant to fraud.  

Is it possible to collate millions of fraud reports?

In the past, it was not possible to harvest such large volumes of fraud information from the public, private sector and police forces due to legal, technical and procedural issues. However, the NFIB has overcome these obstacles and created the means to legally and securely receive millions of confirmed reports of fraud, along with a process to cleanse and analyse this information and turn it into actionable intelligence.            

How is fraud data being securely transferred from forces and key stakeholders to the NFIB, without impacting on their resources?

Agreement has been reached with the National Policing Improvement Agency that police fraud data can be directly downloaded from the Police National Database (PND) into the NFIB hub without double keying, which means that it only has to be entered once. Having a single mechanism will ensure there is no unnecessary burden for police forces who record fraud locally.

The NFIB hub is designed to take data automatically from data providers and ingest it into the application. This is a secure transfer of data. 

When an offence covers more than one police area are other forces notified that a case is under way?

Yes. If a case spans more than one police area the most appropriate force to conduct the investigation is identified using the crime location guidance within the Home Office Crime Recording Rules. The identified force records the crime and initiates the investigation, while the NFIB updates the other forces and informs them if their involvement is needed.

Are police forces following the same procedures when engaging with the NFIB?

For the NFIB to be a success there needs to be buy-in from all police forces. An ACPO Doctrine and set of Standard Operating Procedures were produced to guide forces when engaging with the NFIB. The documents also give chief officers a full understanding of the commitment and impact on forces of the NFIB and Action Fraud contact centre.

What criteria does the NFIB use to decide if an intelligence report should be passed on to a police force for investigation?

The data is automatically assessed against set criteria to determine the quality and bearing of the data received.

All reports that meet the agreed standard are passed to a police crime manager to apply a second level of manual assessment. Reports meeting the second standard are then passed to an analyst for background checks and verification of key data prior to distribution. Only those reports with verified data and positive investigative leads will be sent to a police force for further investigation.

How many crime referrals are you expecting the NFIB to make each month?

The NFIB is receiving millions of reported cases of fraud from partner organisations that record fraud committed against them or their members. The organisations have classified all these as confirmed fraud and may have undertaken a considerable degree of investigation into the cases. The information is shared with NFIB for the purpose of crime prevention and detection and not with the expectation that the police will further investigate individual crimes. Thus, the vast majority of these crimes are counted as crimes by the NFIB but will not be referred to forces.

Frauds reported by members of the public via the Action Fraud Contact Centre or web reporting service are subject to an assessment and only a select number of individual reports are referred to forces. The majority of these reports are counted as crimes at the NFIB and retained there for intelligence analysis and possible links to other criminality.    

Who staffs the NFIB and where are they based?

The NFIB is staffed by a combination of police officers and support staff along with public and private sector representatives, to give a more complete knowledge on individual sectors. As of June 2010 there was a 50-strong team, housed within the City of London Police Economic Crime Directorate.