The following series of pages contain instructions for bodies participating in NFI. Directors of Finance/Chief Executives and NFI key contacts will be alerted to changes to these instructions via email.
These instructions help participating bodies to plan for the NFI exercise. They set out NFI's aims, the data protection requirements including fair processing notices, the key actions for participating bodies and the data that needs to be submitted. A pdf version of the instructions will be available on request. Please email nfiqueries@audit-commission.gov.uk.
Instructions for bodies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales may be found on the
Northern Ireland Audit Office (external link),
Audit Scotland (external link) and
Wales Audit Office (external link) websites.
Introduction
Since 1996 the Audit Commission has run the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), a sophisticated data matching exercise which matches electronic data within and between participating bodies to prevent and detect fraud.
The Commission's report on National Fraud Initiative 2008/09 will be published in May 2010 and will highlight the main issues arising from this latest exercise.
The Serious Crime Act 2007 (SCA) gave the Audit Commission new powers to enable the benefits of NFI to be extended to central government and the private sector. The Serious Crime Act 2007 inserted a new Part 2A in to the Audit Commission Act 1998 (ACA).
The SCA imposed a new regulatory regime alongside existing fair processing and other compliance requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. Any person or body conducting or participating in the Commission's data matching exercises must by law, have regard to a statutory Code of Data Matching Practice.
Distribution of matches
Once the data-matching process for each exercise is completed, the output will be made available to the relevant participating body for consideration and investigation via the secure NFI software. Responsibility for investigating any matches will rest with participating bodies.
It is essential that the guidance provided with the data matching output is considered as it will assist with prioritisation of the reports and the matches within them. It is vital to note that the matches are not necessarily fraudulent but that they are potentially worthy of further investigation.
External auditors
External auditors (where applicable) will continue to be involved in NFI. They will use the output from the exercise to help them assess the arrangements that audited bodies have in place to prevent and detect fraud in accordance with the Code of Audit Practice.