Recommendation 4

The Department has failed to support police forces to build the capacity or skills they need to tackle fraud effectively. Despite making up 41% of all crime in the year to June 2022, only around 1% of police personnel are dedicated to fraud. In April 2022, we reported on the Department’s Police Uplift Programme which aimed to recruit 20,000 new police officers. However, only 380 of these 20,000 officers (around 2%) will specialise in fraud. Although fraud is now mentioned in all Police and Crime Plans, police forces are still not prioritising fraud. Many front-line police officers do not know enough about fraud and have not been given the training they need. Forces find it difficult to recruit and retain civilians with the specialist skills needed to tackle fraud as they are also highly desirable to the private sector. Of around 27,000 cases per year sent to local police forces for investigation, less than 5% result in an offender being charged or prosecuted for the crime. Recommendation 4: The Department should outline, as part of its Treasury Minute response, how it will increase both the priority of tackling fraud within territorial police forces and the capacity of police forces to investigate cases. The Department also needs to step up its support to police forces to ensure they can tackle fraud more effectively.