Prevention detection and deterrence
Protecting your business from fraud is an always-on activity. To help you stay on top of risks, we have developed a suite of products and services that proactively build strong fraud defence, detection and prevention methods across your organisation.
Fraud and bribery risk assessment
Knowing where risks exist in your organisation enables you to effectively do something about them. Our assessment process is designed to pinpoint areas of risk and inform a response plan to actively prevent fraud and bribery occurring.
Our team will provide you with a suite of operational fraud and bribery risks that you can monitor in the same way as your other risks.
Bribery Act - adequate procedures compliance
The Bribery Act 2010 introduced a strict liability offence for companies and partnerships failing to prevent bribery. Without adequate procedures in place to prevent anyone associated with the organisation participating in bribery, the organisation, directors and individuals can be held criminally liable if it occurs.
Our comprehensive programme reviews all your bribery material, training, communications and policies to ensure you comply with the six core strands of the adequate procedures:
- proportionate procedures;
- top-level commitment;
- risk assessment;
- due diligence;
- communication (including training); and
- monitoring and review.
When gaps are identified, we’re on hand to support you with updating policies, providing custom training and communications packages, and putting in place clear processes to manage any conflicts of interests.
GovS013: Counter Fraud compliance
The Counter Fraud Functional Standard was launched in October 2018 and is being implemented across government. It applies to all government departments, their arms-length bodies and executive agencies. GovS013 is intended to standardise the management of counter fraud, bribery and corruption and their impact on the organisation.
We help organisations comply with GovS013, starting with a review of all material, training, communications and policies that are in place. Where we identify gaps, we provide specialist support in updating policies, processes, awareness programmes, risk assessment activity and investigation practices, not only to meet the Standard, but to mitigate the risks of fraud, bribery and corruption.
Policy fraud risk governance
Clear and robust policies are crucial to preventing fraud. They also serve as evidence should it occur.
We can review your policies to make sure they are legislatively compliant, meet best practice and support your operations by actively preventing and deterring fraud and bribery. Below are examples of policies that should be reviewed from a counter fraud perspective:
- fraud, bribery, corruption policy, and response and escalation plans;
- anti-money laundering policies;
- code of conduct;
- declarations of interest, gifts and hospitality policies;
- finance policies;
- IT policies;
- payroll policies;
- pre and post-employment screening and employee relations policies;
- procurement policies;
- raising concerns/whistleblowing policies; and
- sickness absence management.
Bespoke fraud and bribery awareness training
Staff are vital in the battle against fraud. Fraud and bribery awareness training educates your members of staff across all levels about the threat of fraud and bribery. Our programme explains the ways in which fraud can damage organisations, as well as the role everyone plays in deterring and detecting it. Training is also a key element to the Bribery Act 2010 adequate procedures.
We can provide training in a number of ways, including face to face, webinars and eLearning. Our sessions focus on helping your workforce to understand fraud and bribery and how it may present itself in your business. We base our education in your real-world settings, encouraging staff to actively consider fraud and bribery risks that may occur in their day-to-day duties, and give your team effective prevention and detection techniques to mitigate those risks.
Each session is tailored to the needs of each audience. For example, a bribery awareness training session delivered to the board of directors will focus on the responsibilities of the board in overseeing compliance with the Bribery Act 2010 adequate procedures. We can touch on everything from identify verification to procurement and bespoke risk areas such as anti-money laundering and grant management.
Bespoke proactive prevention and detection reviews
Our proactive fraud prevention and detection reviews focus on key fraud and bribery risk areas. We look to identify and strengthen weaknesses in control and process so they reach an anti-crime standard. We also actively seek out instances of fraud in your organisation. Our data analytics software gives us the ability to carry out reviews of any size.
We typically carry out reviews in the following areas:
- Finance – covering invoicing and accounts payable, with a view to test controls and identify instances of duplicate, inflated or unusual payments.
- Procurement – including compliance with financial and procurement policies.
- Pre-employment checking processes – identifying any individuals who do not have the right qualifications, right to work, references, DBS clearance or suitability for the role.
- Payroll – reviewing the full data population to identify potential ghost employees and unusual payments.
Recruitment and right to work
Your organisation can face serious financial and reputational consequences if your pre-employment checking process goes wrong. Not only could your organisation be liable for fines of up to £20,000 per illegal employee and be at risk of criminal conviction, but the impact of recruiting an employee based on false claims can be devastating for your business.
Recruitment reviews
We can give you confidence that you are recruiting the right person for your business. Our reviews will make sure you have adequate controls and processes in place throughout the recruitment process to mitigate the risk of fraud and bribery.
Identity verification training
Our experts provide bespoke, interactive training in recruitment, with a special focus on identity verification. The training workshop gives your recruitment staff the skills they need to identify imposters as well as forged, counterfeit and fantasy documents that may be presented by potential candidates.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Andrea Deegan and Gemma Higginson to learn more about how we can help your organisation.
