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Tax and Revenue Management

UK to set up anti-revenue fraud network

By Johanna Morden | 9 June 2011

The UK Cabinet Office’s Counter Fraud Taskforce will be establishing a new counter-fraud network to detect fraudulent individuals that have caused the government in the past to lose £21 billion in taxpayers’ money.

The Counter Fraud Taskforce, created by Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General Francis Maude late last year, will launch Intelligence-sharing networks across government that will alert authorities when new types of fraud are identified.

This will allow the names of fraudsters to be circulated within government.

The Taskforce is also considering the development of a watchlist of people who have committed insider-enabled fraud against the public sector.

A report has been released by the Taskforce detailing the cases of revenue fraud across all levels of government, with proposals for a new zero-tolerance approach that could end the “pay first, check later” culture in the civil service.

“We know this zero tolerance approach works,” said Maude. “The pilots being run by the Counter Fraud Taskforce, which I set up last year, are already making serious savings.”

According to information from the Cabinet, the eight launched pilot programmes have already saved £12 million ion the part of the government and £1.5 billion more is expected to be saved over the next 2 to 4 years.

The Taskforce has taken the innovative approach of focusing on delivery than strategy to reduce fraud.

The reported £21 billion of fraud in the public sector involves £15 billion of tax evasion, £1.5 billion of tax and benefits fraud, and £1.5 billion of procurement fraud. The rest are grant fraud and payroll fraud, among others.

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