By Dave Carter, British Council
What feels like a lifetime ago now – but was in reality only a shade over ten years – I left the City of London Police to forge a new career as Head of Fraud at a large international charity. With a noticeable void in my suit jacket pocket where my warrant card used to be, I moved into this new sector.
The Charity had vaguely heard of something called the Bribery Act and the Terrorism Act which needed adhering to, and the Trustees were concerned about rumblings from some overseas operations. All of this boiled over into creating a new role which could hopefully solve all these problems. And at this point, I entered the fray.
The change in culture almost took my breath away. UK Policing, far from perfect, was reassuringly familiar – just like that weight in my jacket pocket – whereas what was this crazy world I’d just joined?! With meeting rooms called ‘Positivity’ and ‘Creativity’, and where decisions were made, or not made, by consensus rather than by a senior officer!
As soon as I’d settled in – if indeed I ever have – I looked around for likeminded individuals both within my organisation and without. And found very few. It turned out that my role of Head of Fraud was a shiny new one – so new in fact, that no one, least of all me, really had a clue what I was supposed to be doing. All we knew was that there was a lot of noise about fraud coming in externally from regulators, the media, the government, amongst others.
One of my first decisions was to look across the sector to see what else was going on and if there was anyone else we could turn to. The answer to that was initially ‘no’, but I soon found out that other charities had just recruited other ex-cops into similar roles. And at that point, the International NGO Heads of Fraud Group was formed. Ten years later, it is still going strong, now with a much larger membership and quarterly(ish) meetings, along with a lot more informal engagement going on in-between.
My reason for reaching out to peers was an instinctive one, as one of the lessons I’d learnt from policing is the importance, indeed necessity, of working in partnership. I was fortunate to have led a national team in the Police who worked closely with the UK banking sector to target organised crime groups committing payment fraud. The way that the individual banks worked together as a sector, along with UK Finance and UK Policing, was exceptional. The banks were all competing with each other for market share, but when it came to targeting crime and fraud, their cooperation was remarkable. So, fresh from this model of partnership working, I came to the charity sector, keen to reproduce it.
Next up was the Charity Commission who had a small and informal group looking at fraud, and from this acorn, the Charities Against Fraud Group (CAFG) was born. With fantastic support from the Fraud Advisory Panel (FAP) and the Charity Commission themselves, the CAFG has now grown to scores of members, which include charities, umbrella organisations, law enforcement and many others.
I’ve had the pleasure of chairing this group for a number of years before recently handing over to the FAP, but I’ve seen it grow into a real force for good across the sector, where best practice is shared, and charities are supported better than ever before. It is important to note that the vast majority of charities do not have the luxury of a counter-fraud professional to call on, so when the inevitable happens, they are at a total loss what to do. That’s where the CAFG comes in, at least lending a friendly ear and pointing them in the right direction, without charging them thousands of pounds a day.
The management of fraud within the charity sector is in a much better place than it was ten years ago, as now there is a recognition that fraud is a problem that affects us all – if not today, it will tomorrow. And there is now a group of supportive individuals who are there to help.
It has always been my firm belief that the charities who are lucky enough to have a dedicated counter-fraud team have a responsibility to support those who do not – and that can only be achieved in partnership with the sector as a whole.