National Fraud Initiative –
preparing for the future
North West Auditors Forum 2014
Kevin Boon
NFI – preparing for the future
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Pre 2014 - NFI recap
Data/Match Quality
Smarter Working
What’s new in NFI 2014/15
NFI and the Future
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Other purposes
Fraud
Flexible matching
Application checker
Pre 2014 - NFI recap
NFI: Key Facts
Sophisticated batch
data matching
exercise designed to
prevent and detect
fraud
Established in 1996
and undertaken
every 2 years
Over 1,300
mandatory and
voluntary
participants provide
8,000 datasets
In 2012-13 3.76m
data matches
released
(Recommended
Filter Matches 15%)
Over £1bn of fraud,
error and
overpayments
identified to date
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Incorporates
England, Wales,
Scotland and
Northern Ireland
NFI Batch Data Matching: The Process
Participating
bodies submit
specified data
The NFI Team
feeds back the
outcomes within
the National
Report
Participants
investigate
matches, to
establish fraud,
error or other
another cause
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The NFI
matches data
within and
between bodies,
to identify
anomalies
The data
matches are
returns matches
to participants
NFI Batch Data Matching: The Data Pot
Blue Badges
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Concessionary
Travel Pass
Creditors
Council Tax
DWP & DDRI
Deceased
Persons
Deferred Pensions
Electoral Roll
Insurance
Claimants
Market Traders
Occupational
Pensions
Payroll
Fraud Data
Housing Benefit
Claimants
Housing Tenants
Right To Buy
Personal Alcohol
Licences
Private Residential
Care Homes
Student Loans
Taxi Drivers
UKBA Immigration
Data
Waiting Lists
The NFI Web Application
The NFI is delivered via a specially developed web application designed to
place the user in control of their investigation
The Web Application Key Features
• Secure facility for submitting data and for distributing matches
• Hierarchal and controlled user access
• Case management control features
• Management information
• Online training programme
• Data quality assessment
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NFI Cost Benefit per Organisation Type
Number of bodies
(across UK)
2012/2013
fee
Average financial
outcomes this
reporting period
London borough council
33
£4,150
£1,534,167
Metropolitan borough council
36
£4,000
£559,391
Unitary authority
76
£3,650
£489,781
County council and fire authority
62
£3,750
£376,443
District council
228
£2,100 - £2,300
£94,238
Police body
53
£1,000
£53,792
NHS organisation
441
£1,000
£15,598
Other local government bodies
65
£1,000
£4,639
Type of mandatory body
Key Outcomes of the 2012/13 exercise - across England
£203 million in fraud and error was detected
571 prosecutions
120 people employed without the right to work in the UK were
identified and as a result were dismissed or asked to resign
86 properties recovered for social landlords
21,396 blue badges and 78,443 concessionary travel passes cancelled
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Data Quality
Data Quality
Data Quality is high priority (after Security)
Why is it so important?
Duplicate
creditors
• Meeting
specifications
• Poor data produces spurious matches
• Wasted time and effort
Garbage in, garbage out
Duplicate invoices
Data Quality
How can you check Data Quality?
Using Excel/IDEA
• Date
sortingcreditors
for completeness
Duplicate
• Numeric sorting and control totals for reasonableness
• Alpha sorting for completeness and rogue data/records
• Excel format checking
• Record count – truncation
• Gap detection for quality and completeness
Duplicate invoices
Smarter Working
Smarter working
• Data Quality
• Early engagement of investigators
• Timing of follow up e.g. students
• Key reports
• Recommended matches
• Using NFI as case management system
• Filtering and sorting matches
• Visual sifting using vertical view
• Multiple match opening/closing
• Larger reports e.g. Creditors
– Exporting
– Filtering in Excel (guidance available)
– Summary recording of outcomes
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What’s new for 2014/15?
What’s new in 2014/15?
• Security Policy
• Move to SFIS
• PSN
• UPRNs
• Annual Council Tax SPD exercise
• Outcomes MI report separate Fraud and Error
• More match filters introduced
• Extending the vertical view quick tick function
• New Benefit ‘customer’ or ‘official’ error categories
• Improved search, navigation, export and shared comment facilities
• More efficient further information enquiry process for:– Home Office immigration
– Pensions
– Students
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NFI and the Future
Other Purposes and The Cabinet Office
The Future: Other purposes
• The Serious Crime Act 2007 gave powers to the Secretary of State to
extend the purposes of data matching beyond fraud.
• Data matching through the NFI could help public bodies to reduce the
significant levels of debt owed to them.
• Arrears matching could identify details of those with tenant arrears,
court fines, parking notices, child support payments and student loans.
• Locating absconders.
• The powers were never enacted.
•However, the future looks better…..
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The Future: The Cabinet office
• What the move to the Cabinet Office will mean for NFI:– Transfer of mandatory powers before March 2015
– Updated Code of Data Matching Practice
– Inherit existing powers
– Extend mandatory participants (including government
departments)
– Legal power of Secretary of State to change purpose
– Extension to error, debt/arrears recovery, maladministration,
crimes other than fraud
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NFI and the Future
Fraud and The Cabinet Office
NFI Fraud Detection and Prevention
The NFI has
traditionally
focussed on
fraud detection
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We intend to… “deploy
the National Fraud
Initiative more widely
as a near real-time tool
to enable data
matching between
departments, and
between central and
local government”
We are developing
services to also
assist with fraud
prevention
NFI and the Future
The Flexible Matching Service
(FMS)
What is Flexible Matching?
• The NFI flexible matching service is a powerful and sophisticated data
matching engine that instantly identifies matches for counter-fraud
investigation
• A new NFI web application has been built which includes a facility to create
and manage data matching jobs and an interactive data submission wizard
• It can run batch data matching as stand-alone tasks at a time and frequency
that suits your organisation’s operational requirements
• All existing NFI matching options are available to participants
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What can The Flexible Matching Service be used for?
Internal/Project Data Matching
• Participants upload data for internal matching only
• The datasets are only be matched to each other
• Optional data matching against the NFI core datasets
Multi-Organisation Data Matching
• Regional data matching initiatives where a group
of participants wish to submit data for local cross
matching
• Optional data matching against the NFI core
datasets
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FMS: Existing Uses
Housing benefit to student loans
Council Tax to Electoral Register
Mortality Screening
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Personal budgets
NFI and the Future
The Application Checker
An Overview of the Application Checker
• Our new service that we are about to launch
• Matches applications on a record by record basis with instant results
• Designed to help prevent fraud at the point of application
• Prevents fraud getting into your systems by data matching against the core
NFI data
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Application Checker: Basic Principles
Names
Address
Date of
Birth
Payroll, Housing Benefit, Fraud
Data and Immigration Data
Matches
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Further Information
Further information regarding the NFI can be found
on our website.
Alternatively please contact the NFI team via NFI
queries
My contact details
Kevin Boon
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k-boon@audit-commission.gsi.gov.uk