Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of Action Fraud.

Based out of the City of London Police, Action Fraud is the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime and works alongside the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau who are responsible for the assessment of the reports.

In light of advances in technology and growing demand on the service, as well as reports such as Sir Craig Mackey’s independent review of Action Fraud (https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/assets/About-us/action-fraud-report.pdf), we are working with the City of London Police on plans to refresh and upgrade the current Action Fraud service. We are working to make continuous improvements to the service to make it easier for victims to report fraud, including increasing the number of staff in the call centre.

At the same time City of London Police have launched a competitive procurement for a new service, to be operational by 2024. This will improve the service to victims, provide greater intelligence and insight to policing on fraud and cybercrime affecting communities, and allow for greater prevention and disruption at scale.

We are spending an additional £400 million over the next three years to tackle economic crime including fraud, which follows the extra £63m investment prioritised in 2021. Some of this funding will be used in the programme to refresh and upgrade the Action Fraud service.