Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many referrals were made by (a) police forces to the Crown Prosecution Service and (b) Action Fraud to police forces in each quarter since Action Fraud was established by police force area.

The Home Office does not hold data on referrals made by police forces to the CPS, however the Home Office publish yearly data on fraud offence outcomes including charges/summons.

The table below shows the total number of charges/summons for fraud offences in the Year Ending March from 2014 to 2021. Note the inclusion of Computer Misuse Act Offences as these are not separated in the data in all time periods. Data begins in 2014 due to changes in recording.

The Home Office does not hold data for the number of referrals each police force receives in any time periods. The closest data is published disseminations figures, which are cases consisting of grouped reports passed to police forces from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. This data is not published quarterly, and instead annually Year Ending March.

The table below shows the number of disseminations sent from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau to police forces, Year Ending March.

Note this includes disseminations for Computer Misuse Act Offences as these are not separated in the data in all time periods. A dissemination can include many reports within one case.

The source for both Home Office outcomes and disseminations can be found here: Crime outcomes in England and Wales statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office does not hold data for how many of these reports lead to prosecutions, either by police force area or in total. The Crime Survey for England and Wales releases quarterly publications with 12 months of data and not a breakdown of reports by quarter.

The table below shows the number of reports made to Action Fraud Year Ending September from 2014 to 2021.

Note this data will include some reports of fraud against businesses and the data begins Year Ending September 2014.

The source for Action Fraud reports can be found here: Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).

The Home Office does not have figures for the proportion of Action Fraud reports which lead to a prosecution in total or by police area and have been unable to answer that part of the question.