Fraud and the Fight to Fix It – Reflections from a Retiring Police Crime Commissioner, and others

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Fraud is now costing the UK economy as much as the entire NHS. The annual figure for fraud given by the National Crime Agency is over £190Bn based on figures from three years ago. This is almost certainly an underestimate. The NHS in the same year cost £197Bn a year. Little is done to combat major fraud. Less than 0.03% of the amount lost is spent on countering fraud. The Serious Fraud Office receives around £50m a year, Action Fraud, which has been shown to be largely unfit for purpose, receives £16m. Police Forces have neither the time, capacity, nor capability to take on fraud. When fraud cases are brought to their attention, they are either sent to Action Fraud, where mostly they seem to disappear into an administrative hole never to be heard of again; or are classed as a civil matter. The few that are distributed back down to police forces are rarely investigated. Less than 2% of fraud is investigated properly, and only a fraction of that brought to justice. Despite the scale of the problem, there has been little effort or no enthusiasm by the many regulatory authorities, notably the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulatory Committee, the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Conduct Agency, to either stop these frauds or bring the perpetrators to justice. There are mountains of evidence showing that fraudsters have ruined thousands of companies, farmers, and families; and the lives of thousands of individuals. A great number of jobs have been destroyed. Companies, homes, farms and possessions have been repossessed on forged documentation across the country. The damage to the UK economy has been massive. The UK needs a profitable financial services sector that is well-governed and free from widespread scams and fraud. We’re a long way away from that. This event will tackle these issues head-on, with the keynote speaker being Anthony Stansfeld, Police Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police who has, over several decades, earned an outstanding reputation for honesty, decency and doing what is right, regardless of how inconvenient it might be to do so. Anthony will be joined by many other speakers who have stepped forward to “tell it as it is” with a view to shining a big bright light on the unacceptable state of affairs in the UK’s financial sector.