Each of us must ensure we understand:
- what fraud is
- where we might come across fraud in our lives (both at home and at work)
- what we can do to prevent fraud happening and identify when it does.
This week we’re sharing vital updates to provide you with the information you need to identify, prevent and detect fraud.
Understanding fraud
Fraud is when one person deceives another individual or organisation to get a benefit for themselves.
Fraud takes lots of forms and includes theft (of our cash or assets), scams, bribery and money laundering.
Please watch this short fraud awareness video for more information.
Who commits fraud
There is no clear definition of a ‘fraudster’, frauds are committed by all sorts of people.
Frauds do however, tend to happen when 3 key factors come together:
- rationalisation
- opportunity
- pressure
This is known as the fraud triangle.
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners have produced a video called confessions of convicted fraudsters provides an insight from convicted fraudsters on how and why they committed fraud.
Fraud in local government
Fraud can affect any aspect of our professional and personal lives. Local Government bodies are however particularly at risk of payment fraud, cyber fraud and social care fraud.
Payment fraud
Each year, we make thousands of payments to suppliers for goods and services. Payment fraud occurs when fraudsters seek to divert payments from the supplier’s bank account to their own.
The Metropolitan Police service have produced a Little guide to avoiding payment fraudvideo which provides further information on payment fraud and what you can do to reduce the risk of this occurring.
Social care fraud
In order to establish whether someone should pay for their care, we perform checks and ask the individual to declare what money (or property) they own.
If people fail to disclose the true value of their assets they could receive funding that they are not entitled to. This is known as social care fraud.
Social care fraud is estimated to cost local government £13.7 million each year.
Find out more about cyber and identify fraud as well as fraud prevention and reporting in this week’s Our Derbyshire newsletters.