Transparency data

Joint Fraud Taskforce board minutes: 26 September 2019

Published 23 July 2021

Attendees

• Chair: Mike Haley (Cifas)
• Alex Rothwell (City of London Police)
• Graeme Biggar (National Economic Crime Centre)
• Katy Worobec (UK Finance)
• Alasdair MacFarlane - UK Finance Fraud Committee (RBS)
• Owen Rowland - (Home Office)
• Louise Baxter-Scott (National Trading Standards)
• Neil Masters - JFT Secretariat (Cifas)
• Katherine McNulty - JFT Secretariat (Home Office)

Apologies

• Richard Riley (Home Office)
• Karen Baxter (City of London Police)
• James Martin (British Retail Consortium)

Agenda item 1: Minutes and actions arising

1. Mike Haley (Chair, Cifas) welcomed attendees to the meeting. The minutes from the 18 July 2019 meeting were agreed. An update on each action arising from that meeting was provided. The below table provides a summary of these updates.

Action	Update
1. Alex and Louise to seek views from each board member on the future direction of the collective response / disruptions workstream.	Complete.
2. Alex and Louise to table a paper on the collective response / disruptions work at the next Management Board meeting.	Complete. Discussion at agenda item 5 below.
3. Graeme and Katy to discuss inclusion of UK Finance data in the NDEC fraud pilot.	Complete.
4. Graeme, with support of the JFT Secretariat and all board members, to map out the different fraud-focused groups and what they are each doing.	Ongoing. This is the starting point for a wider piece of work to develop a fraud plan.
5. James to speak to NAO to identify good practice in measuring impact.	Ongoing. James to update at next meeting.
6. Richard to develop a JFT performance strawman for consultation with the board.	Complete. Discussion of strawman below.
7. Alex and Katy to discuss how to better align policing’s protect messages with Take Five.	Complete.

Discussion on action 6 – JFT performance strawman

2. Katherine McNulty (JFT Secretariat, Home Office) introduced the JFT performance strawman. She outlined that the framework aligns to the 7 Key Performance Question (KPQ) framework used to assess performance of the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy. The framework seeks to assess performance across the fraud landscape, whilst also monitoring areas where JFT initiatives have had an impact. An ambitious, measurable outcome has been set for each of the KPQs and a suite of indicators identified that will underpin the assessment for each question. The final assessment would therefore be a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures to provide insight on how the system is responding to the threat.

3. Mike considered the strawman to be a significant step forward. Owen Rowland (Home Office) highlighted that the framework tries to go beyond establishing a causal link between JFT work and threat reduction, assessing how the whole system is operating. Graeme Biggar (NECC) suggested including a KPQ on how confident we are in our plan to tackle the threat. He also stressed the importance of ensuring this aligns to performance framework that the NECC are developing.

4. Alex Rothwell (CoLP) and Louise Baxter-Scott (NTS) both thought it would be helpful to have all the data on fraud in one place. Louise highlighted that there were other metrics that ought to be included, beyond just metrics on policing. Alasdair MacFarlane (UK Finance Fraud Committee) agreed and thought there were additional metrics that could be used.

Action 1:

All to provide Katherine with other possible data sources for inclusion in the performance framework by 11 October, with a view to the Board signing off the suite of metrics at their next meeting.

Action 2:

Katherine and JFT Secretariat to work with NECC to ensure alignment of performance frameworks as they develop.

Agenda item 2: Reflection on Stakeholder Group meeting

5. Mike considered that the focus on vulnerability at the preceding meeting had gone well. He asked for views on how we respond to the recommendations in the reports discussed. Is a collective JFT response required? Louise thought many of the recommendations aligned with the banking interventions and PAS 17271 work they had been leading on and suggested her team to firstly check where recommendations align or could be taken forward in that forum.

Action 3:

Louise to consider recommendations from the three reports discussed at the JFT Stakeholder Group and see which of those recommendations are, or could be, addressed through the banking interventions work they are leading on.

6. The Board will then consider if to respond formally to the reports, highlighting the recommendations that they will seek to take forward.

7. Mike invited views on having thematic topics for future Stakeholder Group meetings, or whether it should be used as a forum to update the wider group on progress against the workstreams. The Board considered that having a topic helped to focus discussion, and that it would be helpful to have thematic discussions as well as update on progress. Louise suggested we could take a problem to the Stakeholder Group and see how they can help, and / or it could be used to showcase some of the pilots that have been successful and for wider adoption. Graeme and Alasdair agreed, highlighting examples of some initiatives that banks are piloting and that could helpfully be shared more widely. Owen suggested that we could use a meeting to focus on the technological solutions to data sharing. Mike agreed with these suggestions, noting the need to ensure that we target the right people for attendance at the Stakeholder Group, relevant to the topic being discussed.

Agenda item 3: Pension Fraud – Is there a role for JFT?

8. Mike outlined that he had had a discussion with a pension scams industry group. They stated that there was £250m of pension fraud that they knew of but estimated that the true cost of this type of fraud is more likely to be about £1billion. Mike asked the Board whether the JFT should have a role in this type of fraud.

9. Graeme noted that there had been an increase in investment fraud (some of which will be linked to pensions i.e. pension related investment fraud) and this point was made in the threat update that went to the Home Secretary and Chancellor. He noted the work of Project Bloom – a collaboration between HMT, FCA, DCMS, Pension Regulator, law enforcement amongst others – which was set up in 2012 and has had some successes. He considered it needed refreshing, but it provided a framework on which to build on. Graeme thought we firstly needed to understand what each group (e.g. like Project Bloom) is doing on fraud as we don’t have collective visibility of what’s going on. Graeme agreed to set out what each group is doing on fraud, including on investment related pension fraud and provide a summary of Project Bloom. This will allow the Board to consider where gaps exist and where / how the JFT can support addressing those gaps.

Action 4:

Graeme to map current activity on fraud, including summarising the activity of Project Bloom to identify where the JFT could assist, particularly in relation to investment related pension fraud.

Agenda item 4: Legal and Accountancy Roundtable 3 October

10. Mike outlined that a roundtable discussion with 7 legal and accountancy firms had been arranged for 3 October. The aim of the roundtable was to focus on areas where interested firms could provide free resource to support work under the Legal and Regulatory workstream. As such, Mike requested representatives from the NECC, Home Office and UK Finance attend the roundtable.

Action 5:

NECC, Home Office and UK Finance to field a representative to attend the legal and accountancy roundtable on 3 Oct.

Agenda item 5: Collective response

11. Alex provided an overview of the review he and Louise had conducted on the Collective Response work. All the Board members interviewed as part of the review wanted to see this workstream become more strategic. But they unanimously said, that to achieve that, they needed a plan to work to. Alex outlined the two key issues to help determine a way forward: 1. How do we collate information and 2. How do we share information that will lead to a tactical response. Alex thought that information could be shared without everyone meeting every two weeks (the Collective Response working group currently meets every two weeks).

12. Graeme noted the potential overlap of this group with the work of the NECC. The NECC have overarching responsibility for the threat and therefore it may be sensible to bring this group into the NECC’s governance / remit. It could be used as a forum for an organisation to bring an issue to the attention of all members, and for the group to identify the strategic issues at play and tactical opportunities to address those issues. Louise highlighted the example of universal credit fraud that DWP had brought to the table at the last meeting of the Collective Response group.

13. Graeme questioned whether we should model this work on the JMLIT. The JMLIT is supported by expert working groups, and these could be extended to include fraud. Alex highlighted that banks will still want a forum to bring case-specific issues to the attention of law enforcement. Alasdair agreed, but also suggested broadening the group to include other sectors. He gave the example of cheque fraud, which according to UK Finance data has increased 7-fold. The banks had a good understanding of the problem but needed a forum to bring this to the attention of law enforcement.

14. Mike summarised the discussion reinforcing the need to put the Collective Response (or the son of it) on a sustainable footing. That may require more dedicated resource. Alex and Graeme agreed to discuss how to resolve this, and where such a forum would best be housed. They will use the cheque fraud issue as way to test any new approach.

Action 6:

Graeme and Alex to discuss how the Collective Response work should be taken forward, and what changes and resources are needed to ensure it has a more strategic impact.

Agenda item 6: AOB

15. There was no other business. The next Management Board is scheduled for 28 November.