Fraud and Error
In the time it takes you to read these pages, Fujitsu will have prevented £50,000 of fraud and error from being processed.
The UK public sector has an opportunity to offset the worst effects of budget cuts by tackling billions of pounds of fraud and error with proven, yet still innovative approaches. Fujitsu has considerable expertise in reducing the impact of fraud and error in central and local government.
The potential savings are compelling. Based on our experience of devising, implementing and managing a fraud and error reduction service for one large government department, we estimate that well implemented systems could save £10 billion across government within four years.
Our services supplement your teams and helps prioritise their workload. The net result of such an approach has led to a significant increase in yield per resource and a step change in staff engagement and role satisfaction.
Payment on results
We deliver our service at no initial up-front cost and seek commercial agreements where we are only paid on the basis of results achieved. This approach means we can work quickly, testing our method for your organisation to demonstrate the value in proceeding and help you to build your business case.
Portfolio of Offerings
The application of our approach to Fraud Screen is wide and farreaching. For example, we are currently designing programmes that support grant distribution, procurement fraud, housing tenancy fraud, council tax discounts and exemptions. We recognise that Fraud Screen solutions need to be designed and tailored for each Department, Agency or Authority.
Benefit Fraud and Error
Fraud Screen is designed to recognise the characteristics of the fraudster and self-learn as more information about fraudulent behaviours is uncovered. We know that there is a crossover of fraudulent activity between common benefits areas such as housing benefit, council tax benefit and tax credit. Our firewall approach is focused around fraudulent claims moving into payment, as we know that it is more difficult for investigation teams to stop claims once they are in the benefits system. Our success working with colleagues in HMRC has emphasised the importance of ensuring that our screening service supplements the expertise of public sector teams and helps target the investigative resource to be even more effec
Housing Tenancy Fraud and Error Fraud
around social housing represents a particularly insidious pressure on Local Authorities. Sub-letting, lease sell-on, unauthorised succession and fraudulent qualification claims all create a significant financial drain in lost revenue and the additional costs of placing tenants in the private rental system. We work with credit reference agency partners to streamline and automate processes for quickly and accurately detecting fraudulent activity.
Council Tax Discounts and Exemptions
Working with a group of Local Authorities, Fujitsu is running a pathfinder project with the National Fraud Authority to establish a mechanism for identifying potentially fraudulent claims for discounts and full exemptions from Council Tax. A key focus is on suspect student exemptions, which we estimate represent a significant gap in authorities’ tax revenues. The service automates a process for checking, identifying and screening out this high-value fraud as a rapid means of Local Authorities being able to capture significant additional revenue both in year and in subsequent years.
Procurement Fraud
The National Fraud Authority’s Annual Fraud Indicator Report 2011 conservatively estimates that £1.5bn in procurement fraud occurs each year across the Public Sector. We have already trialled the Fraud Screen approach successfully in central and local government and shown that it provides a very useful, fast and inexpensive means of assessing the integrity of corporate procurement processes. |
Insights & Opinions
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Share and share alike
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Motivated by a need to drive efficiencies and reduce costs, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire County Councils in the UK have taken the lead when it comes to reaping the rewards of shared services.
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Three fallacies
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Misheld beliefs about shared services in the public sector are often given as reasons for holding back on shared service adoption. It’s our opinion that not only are these beliefs fallacies, but that shared services actually enable the very things that people believe they inhibit.
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Satisfaction Centre - not cost centre
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As corporate shared services initiatives become operational across UK central and local government, customers are starting to raise questions about ‘lowest common denominator’ services that reduce performance. It’s our opinion that these are
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Collaboration and Pragmatism:
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The UK Government’s cloud computing initiative will reduce cost and boost efficiency, but the public sector and its service partners must work hand-in-hand for it to succeed
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Buying, selling or sitting it out
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As major corporate shared services programmes become operational across UK central and local government, clear divisions will appear in the market.It’s our opinion that there will be two such divisions; one between buyers and sellers and the other between them and the smaller organisations left adrift after the first wave of implementations.
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Making Mobile Solutions
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David Rosewell and Craig Merrick of Fujitsu argue that public sector organisations that equip their workforces with powerful mobile solutions can reap multiple benefits, in particular: maintaining front-line services in the face of budget cuts, boosting efficiency, and cutting costs. However, doing this requires careful planning and business change management.
Worldwide
