Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to strengthen police action against business fraud.

Action Fraud is the national reporting point for fraud and cyber crime. It takes reports of crimes from members of the public and businesses online or via its dedicated helpline. These reports are then analysed by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which looks for links between separate victims of the same scams, and matches information in Action Fraud reports with other data it holds. The NFIB then prepares intelligence packages and sends these to the police force best placed to consider enforcement action. It also carries out work to disrupt the enablers of this criminality, such as having websites used by criminals taken down.

Both Action Fraud and the NFIB are part of the City of London Police, which is the national lead force for fraud. The Government brought Action Fraud into the City of London Police in April 2014 to strengthen the end-to-end process for reporting and analysis of these crimes. Action Fraud also has two dedicated single points of contact for business, and continues to host open days for industry and attend business events to ensure understanding, share protective advice and foster close relationships. Action Fraud also circulates real-time information on the latest fraud threats via its website, social media channels and though police forces and businesses.

The Government is also working closely with law enforcement agencies, industry and third sector partners to support individuals and businesses to be better protected. This includes national and local level action to increase their awareness of the risks and adopting safe online behaviours. The Cyber Streetwise awareness campaign, funded by the National Cyber Security Programme, helps individuals and businesses understand how to stay safe online. The second phase of the campaign, including a refreshed website and online materials, launched in October last year. The Government’s Cyber Information Sharing Partnership, within CERT-UK, is also enabling industry to share
information on online threats including fraud, helping to reduce their vulnerability and the impact of online fraud on UK businesses.

The Home Office has introduced the Commercial Victimisation Survey to better understand and monitor crime against businesses, including fraud and online crime. Findings from the 2012 and 2013 surveys have been published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/crime-against-businesses

Findings from the 2014 survey will be published on 23rd April 2015.