Transparency data

Joint Fraud Taskforce board minutes: 29 May 2019

Published 23 July 2021

Attendees

• Chair elect: Mike Haley (Cifas)
• Karen Baxter (City of London Police)
• Louise Baxter-Scott (National Trading Standards)
• Katy Worobec (UK Finance)
• Alasdair MacFarlane - Financial Crime Committee (RBS)
• Richard Riley (Home Office)
• Jerry Tizard (National Economic Crime Centre)
• Neil Masters - JFT Secretariat (Cifas)
• Katherine McNulty - JFT Secretariat (Home Office)

Apologies

• Adrian Gorham (Communications Crime Strategy Group (Telefonica UK))
• James Martin (British Retail Consortium)
• Grahame Bigger (NECC)

Agenda item 1: Introductions and welcome

1. Mike Haley (Chair elect, Cifas) welcomed attendees to the meeting and congratulated UK Finance on getting the voluntary code for APP scams across the line. This was a real collaborative effort by all parties involved.

2. Mike stated that he wanted to add two items to the agenda: the position on JFT relaunch and on the 2019 Spending Review.

Agenda item 2: JFT relaunch

3. Mike invited Richard Riley (Home Office) to provide an update on Ministerial signoff for JFT 2.0. Richard said there are five things which have provoked Ministers to look again at our overall approach to fraud. These are:

• a. Crime stats – the level of fraud is increasing, as too are other areas of crime (e.g. knife crime). All these up arrows place more demand on policing.

• b. HMICFRS report – the report is uncomfortable across the board, including for government. Ministers are interested in the response to the report, particularly from the law enforcement community and Police & Crime Commissioners (PCCs).

• c. Economic crime paper for the National Security Council (NSC) – the NSC will be considering economic crime in June. In preparing a paper for that meeting, we have been challenged on the adequacy of our response to fraud.

• d. Spending review – there will be one this year and all departments are being asked what will be achieved from any increases in funding. The focus is very much on taking demand out of the system, and fraud presents an interesting challenge in this respect given the opportunities for fraud prevention.

• e. The political landscape – the current leadership campaign casts some political uncertainties.

4. Richard explained that, putting all of this together, we need to have a root and branch examination of our response to fraud. Ministers are also questioning whether there’s a reasonable level of Ministerial oversight on fraud.

5. Mike welcomed the greater focus on fraud from Ministers but was concerned about the delay this is having on relaunching the JFT. The new JFT website is ready to go, and we risk further criticism of JFT’s transparency until we are publicly able to announce the new arrangements for the JFT.

Agenda item 3: Progress on workstreams

6. Mike outlined that this meeting should be an opportunity for workstream leads to bring issues to the board for unblocking. We also need one template for all workstreams to set out their programme plans. Alasdair MacFarlane (Financial Crime Committee) suggested these plans should be outcome focused.

Workstream 1: Understanding the Threat

7. Mike outlined that progress on this workstream had stalled whilst we await the public / private threat update being conducted by the NCA. Given the close proximity of this assessment (it’s due by the end of June), Mike didn’t want to duplicate efforts.

8. Jerry Tizard (NECC) outlined that the public / private threat assessment will be pitched at quite a high level. It will not, for example, cover every type of fraud in detail. The assessment will also not stipulate intelligence requirements, but intelligence gaps, and how we fill them, should be addressed in the Economic Crime Plan. Jerry welcomed views, data and intelligence on the assessment and Katy Worobec (UK Finance) said they had robust stats as well as intelligence that they can contribute.

9. Karen Baxter (City of London Police) stressed how challenging the task is to conduct a detailed assessment in such a short timeframe and wanted to manage the group’s expectation on what the assessment will cover. She thought it would be unable to address gaps in our understanding on, for example, offender profiles and pathways into criminality. Richard agreed. Whilst we’ll have some answers once the assessment is finished, it will not be complete.

10. Mike recommended that the public / private threat assessment be tabled for discussion at the next Management Board meeting on 19 July.

Action 1:

Public / private threat assessment to be tabled for discussion at next JFT Management Board meeting.

Workstream 2: Vulnerabilities

11. Alasdair outlined some of the vulnerabilities that he and Adrian Gorham had identified and that impact both the banking and telecommunications industries. He noted that there was already some work being done by UK Finance and telecom companies to address SMS fraud. Alasdair noted that some further work is needed to identify solutions to these issues, otherwise we risk going down the same well-trodden path. He suggested holding a senior-level meeting to explore some of the options.

12. Alasdair highlighted the risk of SMS fraud increasing when the new rules on Stronger Customer Authentication come into effect in September. He noted that more and more banks were using SMSs to verify payments, but the industry needed to balance the ease to customers against the risk this type of communication poses. Karen outlined that telephones are used across all types of criminality. For example, individuals are able to buy 20 SIM cards in one go and these are used to facilitate the supply of drugs, firearms etc. Alasdair will add the issue of ‘burner phones’ to the plans for this workstream.

Workstream 3: Legal and Regulatory

13. Katy outlined the three areas this workstream will focus on: developing a funds repatriation system; enhancing information sharing between organisations; and addressing legal barriers emerging from other workstreams. On funds repatriation, Katy highlighted that we had been talking about this for some time, but we now needed to build momentum to deliver on it. Richard agreed, noting that we hadn’t yet fully tested the parameters of the current legal framework. He also said that if legal changes are required, we need to identify what as we will soon be bidding for legislation. Katy and Richard suggested the next step was to get a group of experts together to explore options. This group should include legal, policy and law enforcement expertise, and crucially, practitioner expertise.

Action 2:

Katy and Richard to seek volunteer experts from the JFT membership to stand up a ‘funds repatriation expert working group’.

14. On information sharing, Katy highlighted that there were already a number of projects in this area and we needed to be careful not to duplicate efforts. Richard suggested that the task was one of deconfliction, rather than creating something new. We could usefully deploy some consultancy resource in this area to map current information sharing gateways.

Action 3:

Mike to seek free consultancy resource to map information sharing gateways from those consultancy agencies who have previously expressed a desire to be involved in the JFT’s work.

Workstream 4: Disruptions

15. Karen outlined that the first task was to conduct a short (90 day) review of the collective response work (the precursor to this workstream). This will identify the 4 – 5 main disruptions to focus on, based on an understanding of what’s working. Louise Baxter-Scott (NTS) highlighted that this workstream needed to have victims at its centre, with disruptions focusing on areas that cause the most harm.

16. Karen requested board members nominate individuals to assist in conducting this review.

Action 4:

All to provide Karen and Louise with names of individuals to assist with the review of the ‘collective response’ work.

Agenda item 4: Measuring impact and performance

17. Richard stated that we had sketched out some possible strategic outcomes for the JFT, and proxy measures for them. This will be circulated to the group. The outcomes flow from the JFT’s aim to reduce the level and harm caused by fraud. Alasdair stated that we needed to be clear on the outcomes we want to achieve e.g. is it about reducing the number of frauds, or the £s lost? Mike requested that these questions are brought back to board for discussion at the next meeting on 19 July.

Action 5:

Draft skeleton performance framework to be circulated to the board.

Action 6:

Richard to identify the strategic questions this board needs to consider before a more detailed performance framework can be formulated. These questions to be brought back to the board for discussion at the next meeting.

Agenda item 5: HMICFRS report and Spending Review implications

18. Karen provided an overview of HMICFRS’s recommendations. She was confident that CoLP will be able to deliver on the recommendations for them but noted that 6 of the 16 recommendations are for Chief Constables on the local response to fraud. Mike invited views from the group on the JFT’s role in responding to HMICFRS and how we can best influence the forthcoming Spending Review – this appeared to be an opportunity that we don’t want to miss.

19. There was a discussion about the cyber protect network, and whether we ought to be promoting this type of an approach in the Spending Review. Karen had already began developing a case on that basis and will share with the group for views to be fed in. Katy suggested there was more we can do collectively on the provision of fraud protection advice, and the coordination of those messages.

20. There was also a discussion on the support provided to victims. Richard highlighted that PCCs were key in this area. They commission victim support services in their force area and therefore have the ability to enhance the support provided to fraud victims. Mike recommended the JFT write to the lead PCC on fraud as a way to influence their response.

21. Richard considered that the most fertile ground for the Spending Review pitch was to articulate how, with the right investment, we can take demand out of an already overstretched system. Louise provided examples of the impact the Friends Against Scams and Mail Marshal programmes had had. We should build on these examples to demonstrate the impact that investment in prevention can have. Mike suggested that the JFT should build on Karen’s bid for a fraud protect network (similar to that for cyber) to include more on what the private sector can do in this space and highlight the impacts that a greater investment in fraud prevention could have.

Action 7:

Mike to draft a letter to the lead PCC for fraud.

Action 8:

Karen to share the proposal for a ‘fraud protect network’, with all to contribute to formulate a JFT pitch for the Spending Review to be submitted to government.

22. Mike closed the meeting noting the next meeting is on 19 July. He would like to have a discussion on vulnerability and victims at that meeting, along with items on performance and the public / private threat assessment.