The future for National Fraud Initiative
The effectiveness of the NFI has been recognised by the Government’s Fraud Review and new powers have been given to the Audit Commission under the Serious Crime Act 2007, to enable the benefits of the NFI to be extended to other public bodies and the private sector.
This will have the advantage of boosting fraud detection as data will be matched more widely. There is growing evidence from NFI cases that have been investigated that fraudsters are attacking different sectors simultaneously, for example with the same fraudulent identities.
The new framework for data matching prescribed by the Serious Crime Act 2007 contains a number of safeguards on the use and disclosure of data, in addition to the existing requirements under the Data Protection Act 1998 to process data fairly and lawfully.
The Audit Commission is due to lay a Code of Data Matching Practice before Parliament in summer 2008. All organisations taking part in the NFI will have to have regard to this when participating in the data matching.
More information
If you would like to know more about the Audit Commission’s powers and the reasons why it matches particular information visit the Audit Commission website or contact
Head of NFI,
Associate Director,
Audit Commission,
1st Floor, Millbank Tower,
Millbank, London
SW1P 4HQ;
Telephone 0844 798 2222;
email: nfiqueries@audit-commission.gov.uk.
If you wish to know more about the role of London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in the NFI data matching process please contact Internal Audit at
Janet Reynolds
Telephone: 020 8891 7826
email: auditservices@richmond.gov.uk.
or you can write to
Audit Services,
2nd Floor,
York House Annexe,
Richmond Road,
Twickenham,
TW1 3AA..