Thank you for your continued vigilance on fraud.
Single Points of Contact
We asked every local authority to identify a Single Point of Contact for fraud with whom the banks can discuss any suspicious payments they detect. We have asked for this several times and we are grateful to those who have responded. We are nearly there on a complete list. Just to remind you, this list is being shared with the banks through a formal data sharing agreement and it is important that local authorities have (a) supplied a name (b) gained consent from the person for their name to be shared with the banks (c) told their named person they are the Single Point of Contact and may be contacted by a bank. We will follow up directly where local authorities have not yet given us the information we need. If a local authority is unable to identify a Single Point of Contact then we will default to naming the s.151 officer.
Reporting
We will be writing to you about monthly assurance reporting soon but this is a reminder about the importance of reporting certain frauds in real time.
As a reminder, we would like local authorities to report fraud in real time where there are grounds to suspect that the fraud is organised, large scale, systematic and may cross local authority boundaries. This is vital to build a clear picture of what is going on and get vital information back to local authorities on what to look out for.
We know there is variety in who local authorities report this information to and currently there is no single channel. It is critical to capture this sort of information in real time so we recommend you report it simultaneously through a number of channels – NAFN, NATIS, NFI and BEIS. The relevant email address are:
opculverin@natis.police.pnn.uk
nfiqueries@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
businessgrantfunds@beis.gov.uk AND counterfraud@beis.gov.uk
We will use this information, working with banks, local government organisations and where appropriate law enforcement and other colleagues (a) as intelligence to be shared securely with other authorities to try to stop or reduce such fraud in other authorities and/or other HM Government support schemes and (b) to collect evidence for criminal investigations. The details which would be helpful in this context for you to capture include personal/company details and addresses, bank accounts and e-mail/IP addresses. PLEASE REMEMBER though personal information should NOT be contained in emails.
Action
You should continue with the investigation and recovery action you would normally undertake in these cases although you will be contacted to discuss the case.
Local authorities have already prevented fraud by working with central government, the banks and each other and we want to encourage this good practice. Please be particularly careful about letters you receive that may look very convincing, giving information out over the phone, the State Aid limits (there are many well known companies who on the face of it would breach the 800,000 Euro limit if they received government grants) and consider using the bank account verification tool (see attached factsheet) which is available through the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) and can assist your council in verifying the bank accounts of limited companies, sole traders and charities electronically using data from nine major UK banks.
Please carefully read any alerts that come through, whether from NAFN, NFI or central government. Although recent cases highlighted have been phishing and mandate fraud, please be vigilant about different types of fraud.
Please make sure you pass this email to the right person/ people in your local authority so it can be actioned.
Thank you for your assistance.
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