Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the comprehensiveness of their current data in estimating total national fraud, and (2) the feasibility of reintroducing a government-led Annual Fraud Indicator.

The Home Office and the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) publish datasets reflecting their respective responsibilities for fraud against individuals and businesses, and fraud against the public sector.

These include the Crime Survey of England and Wales (supplemented by data from Action Fraud and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau), the Economic Crime Survey of 2020 estimating fraud against businesses across seven sectors (due to be refreshed in 2024), and the PSFA’s annual report on the scale of fraud. There are also plans for a new Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Service in 2024.