Fraud prevention assessment

Fraud is dull. There, I said it. At least, that’s the consensus in my family, who associate fraud with scamming texts, people duped out of savings, and distant Wall St types fiddling numbers on spreadsheets.

Maybe that’s why most organisations do so little to manage fraud risks – it seems a low-level threat (“it won’t happen to us, and if it does, it’ll be a tolerable ‘cost of business.“) Or maybe it’s that fraud isn’t as scary as the fines dolled out for corruption, sanctions, money laundering, or anti-competitive practices.

That would be a foolhardy position.

The UK’s Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 brought fraud in line with the anti-corruption standards in the Bribery Act – notably with the “failure to prevent” fraud offence. The act also doesn’t delineate between common frauds (embezzlement, asset misappropriation, misuse, misrepresentation, etc.) and corruption or money laundering. They’re all “economic crimes,” after all.

The image below is sobering from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ annual report to the nations. It shows the “mean” fraud values and different detection measures. Those figures are substantial for most of us.

So, I put together a Fraud Prevention Scorecard, accessible here: https://fraudprevention.scoreapp.com/

It is not for the faint-hearted, as it’s unapologetically set at a best-practice level. It’s also the longest free scorecard I’ve ever published, at 50 questions. But, by trying to keep the questions intuitive, the average completion time is a respectable 5 minutes. The report will assess you across the areas below. A chance to compare yourself to others (the reporting and whistleblowing scores are comforting, especially noting that “tips” remain the most common way to detect fraud 👆). Less comforting are the policies, procedures, and continuous improvement (or lack thereof).

After you complete the scorecard, you’ll receive a workbook packed with guidance on best practices for each section and all the questions.

It’s been a MASSIVE effort to put this together and out there for free. I’d welcome your feedback. Let me know how you get on! Here’s a button directing you to the scorecard (in case you missed the link above):