The more of us get together, we will fight the fight, bring the public and private sectors together to fight against the fraudsters, who seem to be increasing dramatically. Those were the closing remarks of today’s 14th London Fraud Forum annual conference, by Forum chair Robert Brooker.
While the not for profit body was not able to run its usual central London event, the range and messages of speakers were much as in previous years. Much good work is going on, including between the public and private sectors; but as Robert pointed out, fraudsters too have adapted to the pandemic.
The day began with the central government; a talk by the former Cabinet Minister, Francis Maude, a return speaker to the Forum; then the Prime Minister’s Anti-Corruption Champion, John Penrose, the Conservative MP for Weston super Mare. Penrose made a post-Brexit point; that OJEU, short for the Official Journal of the European Union, the online publication that lists all six-figure and above public contracts, will have to be replaced as part of the UK’s transition out of the EU. As Penrose summed up, while it is important to make procurement tenders clean and transparent, ‘and as fraud-proof as we can make them’, even the advocates of OJEU would admit that it’s slow and clunky.
A challenge for the UK, therefore; how to maintain the standards of the OJEU, and at the same time make it faster and less bureaucratic, and more easily accessible to small entrepreneurs; and more digital.
That implies change; a parting point by Lord Maude. He recalled being asked, as a Cabinet Office minister in the Coalition Government from 2010, when reform would end. His answer was never; you are always going to need to improve; the days of steady state management, business as usual, ‘those are gone, you are either getting better or worse’. That said, both those speakers dwelt on how to bring change to the Whitehall civil service for joined-up audit and counter-fraud work, given that three large central government departments still have their audit internal to themselves rather than joining across-government audit.
A recording of the day will be available for LFF members. The Forum hopes to put on more podcasts until the end of lockdown and a return to physical events. Visit https://www.londonfraudforum.co.uk/.
More in the December 2020 print edition of Professional Security magazine.
