£2.7 billion*, or €3.2 billion*, or if you prefer $4.3 billion*, or even ¥357 billion*!

Do these numbers actually mean anything to people any more?  Is it possible that because statistics like these are thrown at us on such a regular basis, we’ve become a bit immune to any effect they might have on us?  Maybe if we wrote it like this :  £2,700,000,000.00 it would have more effect!  What about Ft.874,600,000,000.00? (Answers on a postcard…)

Anyway, in actuality the figure is probably higher, but seeing as many people either don’t report it, or don’t know it’s happening, who can tell…?

Putting some context to it, because this type of fraud affects about 1.8 million people (in the UK alone), with the criminal gain standing at £1.9 billion*, that’s £1000 stolen (on average) per fraud.  And if you’ve ever had an ID stolen or had your card details nicked then you’ll know what a pain it is to put it right again.

And considering that the government has currently got both hands firmly stuck down the back of the sofa, could we be doing more?  The answer, as always, is ‘yes’ but what exactly can we do?

Well, first you need to know what types of identity fraud there are, right?  Next, you’ve got to identify the areas in your organisation that could be targeted by criminals.  After this, you need to know what to do about closing the door to it happening.  Last, let people know that you’re doing this – if your customers can be confident that you’re not an easy touch, then criminals can be too.

So as a starter, here’s a run down of five important things to do to prevent identity fraud :

• Data protection – it’s easy to simply never disclose any information to anyone, but sometimes you need to.  Make sure that you have robust data protection policies and procedures in place that allow you to share personal data if necessary but prevent unlawful disclosure.
• Postal redirect – one way that a criminal might seek to get personal details is to set up a redirect for someone’s post without them knowing.  Prevent the letters you send out from falling into the wrong hands with a do not redirect instruction with Royal Mail.  If post comes back, you can then check if the redirect is genuine or not.
• Card not present security – these are transactions that take place over the internet or telephone, simply by giving the details on the card.  There are schemes that add an extra layer of security to this process by asking for an additional password held by the card issuer.  Do you take part in these schemes?  If not why not?  If the person making the payment is doing so over the telephone, do you include security questions as part of the payment process?  Again, this greatly enhances security in this area.
• Identity verification procedures – if you’re reading this, chances are that you work for a local authority (you may not, but the principle will still apply to you).  If you do, you’ll deliver a lot of statutory services.  How many of these can be exploited by ID fraudsters?  In our view Housing and Council Tax Benefit, Statutory Homelessness, Housing Allocation, Grants and Social Care are all candidates.  (And outside the remit of statutory services there’s always recruitment to think about…).  What’s your standard of verification for these services?  Have staff been trained?  Do they know how to interview properly and to spot deception?  (We’re sorry, but taking a photocopy of a birth certificate and utility bill really doesn’t cut the mustard.)
  • Awareness – we’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again.  If your staff don’t know what types of fraud there are and what to do if they spot it, how do you expect to prevent it happening.  Awareness for staff and members of the public alike does wonders for ID fraud prevention.  Make sure that you’re not falling behind.

In our view it’s best if you’re not suspicious, but you are questioning.  Rather than wary, you’re alert.  You’re not overly cautious, but you are vigilant.  Go on, save yourself some money and protect IDs at the same time.  You never know, it might be your details next time…!

* Unfortunately it seems as if we’ve gone the way of the Americans in what we call a ‘billion’.  It used to be that it was a million, million or 1,000,000,000,000.  But for some reason we’re now calling a ‘billion’ a thousand million or 1,000,000,000.  It’s probably something to do with it sounding bigger!

We thought that this week we’d give you some handy tips for checking that a person is who they say they are.  The reason for this is because we’ve noticed a worrying increase in identity theft and fraud over the past year, particularly in benefit claims and employment.

It’s now more important than it’s ever been to verify identity properly.  But a common complaint from organisations who need to do this is that they just don’t know how to. The good news it that it doesn’t require months of training, and if you know what to do, it’s relatively straightforward.

Passports – the main document that people will use to verify their identity.  Always check for the following things with all passports you get :

• Held together by stitches and not staples
• Distinct watermarks on every page (hold up to light)
• Page numbers in sequence
• Intaglio ink on the inside cover
• Ultra-violet (UV) reactive motifs within document
• UV fibres in pages
• Paper is not UV reactive
• Holograms present on photo page
• Does the holder have the correct visa?
• If there is a visa does it have security devices?
• Signs of tampering?

These are just a few of the things that you may check, but it’s also useful to know that no holder of a UK passport should have a passport that has a real photo stuck in.  The last of those expired in 2008 and photographs are all printed into UK passports these days (and most overseas passports as well).  You should remember that these checks can be done with pretty much all passports and not just the UK one.

Ten tips for inspecting any identity document :

• Always take your time, don’t feel pressured into accepting a document that you’re not happy with.
• Get someone else to look at it if you’re not happy.
• Contact the issuing authority – is the document reported lost or stolen?
• Take the document out of its holder when you inspect it.
• Check more than one security device to be sure – most official documents will have watermarks, but also look for things such as fine line printing and UV reactive devices.
• Use a UV lamp – always!  UV lamps are useful for spotting foreign substances that have been applied to documents because they react differently than the paper.
• Check for spelling errors, misprints and font changes – this may indicate counterfeiting.
• Carefully check a photo in a document against the holder – the easiest way of fooling you is to use a genuine document belonging to another person.
• Have all the documents presented to you been issued within a very short space of time?  If so it could be a sign of a fabricated identity.
• Ask questions – can the holder give clear answers to straightforward questions about their documents and their past?  If not, why not?

Make sure you that you never accept documentation at face value.  A fraudster will be counting on the fact that you will be too busy to check properly, or not know what to look for.  Documents are also changing all the time and it’s important that you keep on top of this.  Make sure that you regularly update your team with the newest documents issued to UK residents and common overseas visitors.  Keep up to date with document alerts.  Identity thieves are always on the lookout for new ways to trick you, and when they find one, they’ll use it over and over again.  Make sure you know what the latest scams are.  Don’t let verification of documentation become an afterthought.  Make sure that all staff are vigilant and recognise the real benefits that preventing ID theft can bring, ensure that they know that their role is vital.

Following these easy to do steps will make a difference to you being a target for identity thieves.  And nobody wants (or can afford) to be an ‘easy touch’ these days.

Zac O’Neil

If you’d like to know more about identity theft or fraud prevention training.  Contact Jill at jill@its-training-uk.com or call us on 08454 300262.

As you know, recruiting takes time… a lot of time. Time you can ill afford to lose, time that you could have spent doing something else. So once it’s over can you afford to do it all again any time soon? 

Why do think it is then, that so many employers risk not vetting their candidates properly?

For example, most of the time we ask for two references ; one from the last (or current) employer and one other, often a ‘personal’ reference. (Maybe you’ll do a CRB check, too, if it’s a sensitive post). You’ll write directly to the referees named, check the response is on headed paper – or you might phone them… if you have time. 

Did you know, 30% of CVs contain exaggerated, or completely false, information? And there are risks involved in hiring the wrong person : the cost of undertaking an employment investigation and disciplinary action, further recruitment costs, fraud by employee, bad publicity, damage to your reputation, theft of time and property…to name a few. Don’t want to be an ‘employer victim’? The key is in prevention by thoroughly checking a candidate’s past and publicising the fact that you do. 

Some examples of where it’s gone wrong : 

• An employer recruits someone through an agency, taking a reference from the previous employer. Some time later they discover a significant hole in their finances. They discover that the employee is the cause and sack them. If they’d checked the reference properly, they’d have found it to be pure fabrication. 

• Another employer recruits someone with an impressive CV, significant amounts of relevant experience and on the basis of a strong interview. They ask for, and receive, good references from the last two employers. It’s not until after the probation period that the problems appear : shoddy time-keeping, inappropriate internet access and incapability issues eat up management time. Eventually the employee is dismissed for fraud and abuse of personal data. In their CV the employee had grossly exaggerated their employment history, using different identities for employment in the past. Again, proper screening would have saved huge amounts of money and time. 

Anyone who’s been involved in management and / or disciplinary investigations knows what’s at stake when employment goes wrong, and now that everyone is being asked to do more with less…? 

Ask yourself – how robust is your recruitment process? Do you screen people properly? And if not, isn’t it time you did something about it? Your HR team are likely as stretched as you are, but the issue cannot be ignored. 

Consider outsourcing your vetting process. It’s simple, legal, cost effective, time efficient and gives you peace of mind. The only snag is that the candidate needs to consent to the checks – but if they won’t, do you really want them working for you?

Alistair Nunn-Price is a director of ITS Investigations.

If you’d like help or advice about the issues raised in this article, please contact him on 08454 300 212

or email enquiries@its-investigations.com

By Mike Neumann ITS Training Ltd http://www.its-training-uk.com/

One of the biggest problems facing local government is the amount of uncollected debt. When you think that we’re about to be hit with swinging cuts, you might wonder why it is that we’re not getting a little more excited about recovering some of these funds, after all, they might end up paying someone’s wages, covering the cost of refurbishing something or other, or paying for that much needed training course.

So how can you go about getting some of these debtors to cough up?  Here are five thoughts.

1. Turn your investigators into first line recovery officers.  The reality is that most investigations uncover a large amount of financial information.  Almost as standard, investigators come across details of the suspect’s bank accounts, income, outgoings etc.  So long as these have been lawfully obtained during the investigation, there is usually no problem with using this evidence to help you recover monies from your debtor.
2. Get your new ‘first line recovery officers’ to discuss repayment of debt during the investigation process.  They’ve spent time building rapport with the debtor, so they are quite likely to get an agreement to repay.  What’s more, the debtor knows that the investigator knows their true financial situation, which makes the, “I’ve got no money” line harder for them to get away with.  (And harder to deliver, if they’ve got any shame!)
3. If you need to obtain information about someone’s finances, do you know how to do it?  Are you going to get it ‘with informed consent’ or do you need to use a service like Equifax?  If you are going to use Equifax, what is the DPA situation?
4. Make sure that you know your options.  Can you recover from ongoing benefit?  Will you need to go to court?  Do you need to get a County Court judgement, or can you simply register the debt?  How much does it cost, and who pays?
5. If you’re going to court, what order(s) are you going to seek?

• • If you know that they have money in the bank, how can you get at it, and how can you stop them getting shot of it before you get your hands on it?
  • If they’re working, are you going to attach their earnings?  How much can you get per week?
  • What happens if they declare themselves insolvent?  Who administers the insolvency, who pays and how are the monies split up between the creditors?
  • Is there any point in getting a judgement summons, and is a warrant of execution as nasty as it sounds?

When you think about the sums involved, and the amounts that you’re going to lose from your budget this year, you know that collecting it makes sense.  By working with the investigation team, I hope you’ll find it a little easier to get back some of those missing pennies.

What is the difference between a coach and a mentor?  When should a manager manage, and when should s/he coach?

Learning

Any activity that helps a person develop.  In the context of this article, we are using learning to cover self-learn activities undertaken by the client.  These may be purely self motivated, such as reading books and manuals or undertaking research, or they may be initiated by a manager providing the materials.  We’re also including ‘stand-alone distance learning’ here, even though this is normally provided by a professional trainer.

This is really only suitable for the acquisition of knowledge.

Training

The ‘wholesale’ transfer of knowledge and skills.  Delegates have the chance to learn new skills and practice applying them and to absorb knowledge.  Skilled trainers will use a mixture of techniques to ensure that, although the course as a whole is written and delivered to the whole group, each delegate gets as much as they can from the event.

Best suited to learning new skills, training is also useful where knowledge must be absorbed and understood.

Mentoring

A mentor leads by example and is a role model.  The original Mentor was a legendary ancient Greek, who was given the task of looking after Odysseus’ son when the king went off to fight the Trojan wars.  Mentor shared his wisdom and experience in guiding Telemachus in the rule of the kingdom.

Mentors have considerable experience of the role they are mentoring.  Mentors will offer advice, suggest solutions and share their experiences.

Coaching

Coaches help you to apply your knowledge, skills and experience efficiently and effectively.  Generally, coaches are not expected to have specific knowledge of the job that they are coaching.  A coach’s role is to use highly developed facilitation skills to help the client to choose which approach to take in order to solve a specific issue.  Coaching should be non-directive, with the majority of the input contributed by the client ;  a coach’s job is often to do no more than ask questions :  the skill lies in knowing which questions to ask!  Coaches often teach clients interpersonal skills that may be used in problem solving. 

Ideally suited for helping clients to transfer skills or knowledge into the workplace, or for helping them to reach decisions, coaching is also used to help clients improve performance.

Do you like change? It’s one of the more divisive questions! Some people seem to thrive on it, others shun it at all costs. One thing’s certain though, the profile, process and funding of Benefit and benefit fraud investigation changes and changes regularly. Those of us who’ve been involved in this for some time will have seen Weekly Benefit Savings (remember that?) come, evolve into Weekly Incorrect Benefit and then go. 

You’ll remember (fondly no doubt) the cash reward for HB/CTB Fraud Sanctions. On the administration front, does anyone remember the ‘old days’ where the DHSS did (almost) everything? And who remembers regular renewal forms?

Yet now there’s talk of six-monthly benefit periods, with no need to report changes!

Housing Benefit Investigation is being squeezed, whichever way you look at it, and now’s the time to avoid staff losses by spreading your wings and evolving your teams into a more corporate animal, capable (as you know you are) of helping the authority prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute a whole range of crimes.

There are some great reasons to do it not least that the audit commission is emphasising the need for a joined up ‘corporate’ strategy for safeguarding public funds.

There are potentially greater issues to a Local Authority than Housing Benefit Fraud, and even-handedness is important – why investigate Housing Benefit Fraud but ignore Housing Fraud?

As of 6th April 2010 the government will introduce a new Civil Monetary Penalty (CMP) for breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). If you deliberately, or recklessly, breach the DPA principles, your organisation could receive a penalty of up to half a million pounds. 

With all that has been happening to data protection recently – including proposed prison sentences for criminal breaches to name one – you’d be forgiven for feeling a bit overwhelmed. But it’s not surprising that these things are happening: it seems that everyone is concerned about their privacy (or lack of it)! With some of the stories we’ve heard about personal data being lost and stolen, for once this concern might not be misplaced… which means that you have an ever-greater duty to make sure you don’t break the rules. 

I’m sure that no one is going to shrug their shoulders at the thought of getting a CMP, so you’ll want to make sure you’re doing everything right, right? It’s strange then that we should be arguing for a less stuffy approach to using personal data. We all know that you mustn’t give out personal data to just anyone, but can you be too heavy handed? If what you do results in someone else not being able to lawfully carry out his or her job properly, are you actually doing the right thing? 

What this comes down to is awareness. Does everyone in your organisation know about DPA? If the answer is that they think that the correct response is to tell anyone who asks for data that, “DPA says no!”, then maybe they’ve been watching too much Little Britain. Do they know that they can lawfully disclose personal data if criteria are met? Can they describe the rules for giving data to colleagues in other departments? Will your staff follow a formal procedure when someone requests personal data? Do they have access to corporate guidance telling them how to follow the DPA principles? Do they know how long to keep data for? Do they have a procedure for taking information from members of the public? 

Many people think that if a police officer asks for information, they have to tell them. If you know that this isn’t true, and that you could be breaching the DPA non-disclosure rules, then you’re thinking the same as us. No one in their right mind wants to get landed with a new CMP (or convicted of an offence!) and the best way to avoid this is by doing the following: Tell your staff how it all works – don’t let them breach the rules through ignorance. Put the procedures in place and tell them why the procedures are there – people are more likely to follow the rules if they know why they do things rather than that they just need to ‘tick the box’. Publish guidance on the intranet, tell staff where it is and give them clear instructions on what to do if they’re not sure – having this will ensure that no one can argue that the information wasn’t there or that they didn’t know what to do. Follow these simple steps and ultimately you will be processing and disclosing personal data in the interests of everyone. 

Get it right – getting it wrong can lead to a CMP or a criminal conviction – NASTY! 

Get a NASTY poster : Please remember that this is only an overview – for details of our Law Update and DPA briefings or to get your very own NASTY poster, just email phil.tosh@its-training-uk.com or call Frankee on 08454 300 212. 

Have you read the consultation on the future of Housing Benefit?  If you are currently a Fraud Investigator and you haven’t might I suggest that you get a copy right now?  Why the urgency?  Have a look at points 4.13 to 4.16 :

We propose to build on the example of the tax credit system and introduce a system of fixed period awards for Housing Benefit customers which will fix the award of benefit for six months.

A six month fixed period award would strike the right balance between removing the need to report minor fluctuations in circumstances whilst recognising that major changes will occur over time that need to be reflected in the benefit award. The changes that would need to be reported would be subject to detailed design consideration. This would mark a radical change to current Housing Benefit rules which require changes to be reported as soon as they occur. Awards would run for fixed periods but could be renewed as long as the customer continued to satisfy the eligibility rules.

For those in work, benefit awards could be fixed for six months. This could mean that Housing Benefit would be a fixed weekly award that would be unaffected by changes in circumstances including changes in income and earnings. At the end of the six months, the local authority would reassess the claim based on current circumstances. This would not necessarily require a new benefit claim or filling out lengthy forms: lessons learned from ‘rapid reclaim’—a streamlined reclaiming process—could be adopted to allow for a fast and straightforward benefit re‑assessment.

Another option would be to fix the earnings element only of the Housing Benefit calculation for a fixed period. In this way, other changes in circumstances would still need to be reported, and processed, in the usual way but changes in earnings would not need to be reported until the end of the fixed period.

Now call me Mr Suspicious, but that looks to me like one of the most cynical ‘fraud prevention measures’ in quite some time.  Let’s be clear :  a large amount of HB fraud is committed by people who have changes in their circumstances that they ‘don’t get around to reporting’ to the authorities.  An equally large segment of fraud is concerned with the ‘shadow economy’, so there are no records to prove the offence.

Those people who are brought to book are caught out by investigators who work damn hard to prove that the person has had a change in their circumstances that has not been reported.  

If this provision goes into place, it could prove almost impossible to establish that fraud has taken place.  Unless an investigation happens to span an award date (and there’s a fairly small chance of that happening) or lead to some documentary evidence, then there’s a fair chance of there being no provable offence.

So the government will be able to spend more on HB, whilst claiming that fraud rates are down.  And how long before that leads to a reduction in the number of investigators in post?  Oh dear…

Still it’s not all bad :  there’s a campaign running to ‘shop’ those who misuse social housing.  Anyone in the housing department hiring?

With across the board reductions announced in the Homelessness grant, now, more than ever, it’s essential to ensure that you are able to offer appropriate assistance to those in need.  As all those involved know, this means being efficient in the screening process, getting as much information as you can from applicants in one interview, so you can reduce officer time and weed out the inevitable, albeit few, fraudulent applications.

Speaking at the CIH conference last month, Andy Gale, special advisor at CLG, reiterated the need for a robust process, and recommended specialist interview training for all those involved in the process.  Before you arrange your training, here are some tips from the guys mentioned in the original Harrow ‘Beacon Report’ on the subject.

1.         Make a plan.  As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice, if you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t much matter what direction you go in!  (…with apologies to Lewis Carroll!)  Seriously though, the shortest and most focussed interviews (and, therefore, the best) are those in which the interviewer spent some time planning exactly what to ask.

2.         Spend the first couple of minutes just letting them speak.  It’ll relax them and allow them to ‘dump’ any baggage that might stop them from listening to you.  A great question to get them started is, “I’ve got lots of things I need to ask you, but before I do, what would you like to tell me?”

3.         Forget open questions – they are so last century – simply set out the thing you’d like to talk to them about and use an instruction to speak :  “Tell me about…” 

4.         Listen more than you speak.  Evolution is a wonderful thing, and it has left you with twice as many ears as mouths (except for Mr Spock, who has three times*).  You must start the interview by getting information from them, not giving it.  People will (either consciously or otherwise) tell you what they think you want to hear…

5.         Summarise regularly, both to check that you have understood and to show that you are listening.  Use this phase of the interview to jot brief notes and to pick out topics that you’d like to know more about. 

6.         Continue the cycle either by probing more about a ‘picked out topic’ or by introducing a new area entirely.

7.         Finish the interview phase by checking with them if there is anything else they’d like to tell you.  My favourite question for this is, “Was there anything you thought I’d ask about that I haven’t?”

8.         Now write a brief statement and get them to sign it.  You don’t need to include everything, but you should ensure that you include the important points that will effect the decision you make.

FREEBIE FOR OPPORTUNITIES READERS

If you’d like a free notes sheet, a statement form and an interview aide memoire, just email alice@its-training-uk.com with your name, authority and contact details.

Mike is the managing director of ITS Training (UK) Ltd., market leaders in the field of interview and communication training. 

mike@its-training-uk.com

www.its-training-uk.com

08454 300 262

____________________________________________________________

*… a left ear, a right ear and a final front ear.  Sorry about that.