Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Deferred
Paragraph: 37
Increase advertising efforts for Action Fraud to raise public reporting awareness.
Recommendation
The Government should increase efforts in advertising Action Fraud to raise public awareness of how to report incidents of fraud.
Government Response Summary
The government deflected the recommendation to increase Action Fraud advertising, discussing the Strategic Policing Requirement (SPR) and hoping a revised SPR will strengthen fraud capabilities, while also referencing available fraud data.
Paragraph Reference:
37
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The Strategic Policing Requirement (SPR) is the document that sets out what, in the Home Secretary’s view, are the national threats at the time the document is issued, and the national policing capabilities required to counter those national threats. The current SPR (published in 20151) includes Serious and Organised Crime as a national threat and explicitly references fraud within that – although we recognise feedback from many sides that this reference is not enough. Home Office ministers are currently considering a revised SPR and we are hopeful any new SPR will be stronger on fraud capabilities. Regarding performance data, the Action Fraud website provides details of judicial outcomes for fraud and cyber-crime broken down by police force and other agencies in the UK, for 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) and cyber-crime dashboard also provides a breakdown of fraud data by force area. More information on Action Fraud data can be found using the following link: https://www. actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-stats. Investigating Fraud 1.3