Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 21
21
Accepted
Paragraph: 82
Fraud receives disproportionately low police funding and officer allocation despite prevalence.
Recommendation
Fraud accounts for more than 40% of all crime yet receives only around 2% of police funding. Out of the 20,000 new police officers being recruited, only 380 are planned to be deployed in the response to fraud. If the Government is serious in its ambition to reduce fraud, it needs to ensure it is allocated sufficient resourcing within police budgets to help identify and prosecute crimes as well as prevent these crimes from occurring.
Government Response Summary
The government accepts the need for sufficient resourcing, allocating £400 million over three years for economic crime and dedicating 725 police uplift posts to serious organised crime including fraud. It is also expanding fraud investigation teams across all Regional Organised Crime Units and increasing capacity in CoLP and the NCA.
Paragraph Reference:
82
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Government is increasing law enforcement investigative capacity to tackle fraud. Over the next three years the Spending Review has allocated £400 million in tackling economic crime, including fraud. This is in addition to the funding that the Home Office commits each year to the NECC in the NCA, and police forces, including over £15m each year to CoLP as the national lead force for fraud. As part of the Police Uplift Programme, 725 posts have been dedicated to tacking Serious Organised Crime including fraud. Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables will decide how to allocate further resource they receive through the Programme within their forces. Having piloted new fraud investigation teams in four Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs), we are expanding these and rolling them out across all ROCUs. The Government is also increasing law enforcement investigative capacity in the CoLP and establishing a new fraud investigative function in the NCA as part of the establishment of a national law enforcement network tackling fraud. Given the nature of fraud and the scale of the challenge to tackle it, the Government recognises that increasing law enforcement resource alone will not be sufficient and that private sector partners will need to play a significant part in combating this crime.