RUSI Experts React to The UK Government’s New Fraud Strategy

4 May 2023 01:26 PM

Experts from RUSI’s Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies welcome the UK’s new Fraud Strategy. However, they raise concerns about under-funding and the lack of a bolder policing reform plan, as well as stronger measures to reduce the role technology companies play in facilitating fraud.

Fraud is the most common crime type in the UK, representing 41% of recorded domestic criminal activity. The National Crime Agency estimates that fraud losses in the UK may be as high as £190 billion per annum; this includes £40 billion in the UK public sector, a figure roughly equivalent to the UK’s annual defence budget. In recognition of this, the UK government this February reclassified fraud as a threat to national security. 
Long delayed, the publication of the Fraud Strategy is welcome. However, RUSI’s experts highlight concerning gaps in the response, which may reduce its practical impact. These include:

  • Policing reform: The strategy lacks a vision for reforming the policing response and allocates only 400 new officers to the effort. Although the staffing uplift is welcome, it does not boost resource allocation above the current 1% of police resources allocated to fraud.
  • Role of social media and tech companies: The measures advocated in the strategy to reduce the outsized role played by social media and tech companies in facilitating fraud and scams are voluntary and do not go far enough.
  • Sustainable resourcing of the response: The long-term funding of fraud reform is uncertain and potentially unsustainable beyond the current spending round, and there is no plan to increase funding in the future.

Reacting to the strategy, Helena Wood, co-head of RUSI’s UK Economic Crime Programme, said:

‘Fraud ruins the lives of millions of people in the UK, yet the government has repeatedly failed to include fraud statistics in its estimations of crime levels. When included, crime is clearly rising and not falling. Although the strategy includes extra resources for policing fraud, the levels are not commensurate with the scale of the threat. They are certainly not enough to turn around decades of underinvestment in the enforcement response to the crime that affects more UK citizens than any other.’

 

Kathryn Westmore, co-head of RUSI’s UK Economic Crime Programme, added:

‘The current epidemic of fraud continues to have a hugely damaging effect on the UK’s economy. It is clear that certain sectors, notably the technology and telecoms sectors, need to up their game in the fight against fraud. More needs to be done to incentivise these sectors to commit more resources to fighting fraud, perhaps through the introduction of a new fraud levy. Without this, it is hard to see how the government will meet its ambitious targets for cutting fraud.’