What Is the National Fraud Initiative?

The National Fraud Initiative is a data matching exercise. This is a two yearly exercise which is organised and supervised by the Audit Commission and is governed by the requirements of the Audit Commission Act 1988. The National Fraud Initiative was started by central Government in 1996 and Oadby and Wigston Borough Council has participated in this bi-annual exercise since then.

Under the act, Oadby and Wigston Borough Council is required as a public body to share its data relating to employees, councillors and customers with the Audit Commission. This data will then be compared to other records sent to the Audit Commission by other government bodies such as local authorities, police authorities, government departments and the National Health Service.

The purpose of the National Fraud Initiative exercise is to identify where data held by one government body is different to information held by another public body, for example where wage payments to local government employees have not been declared on state benefit claims. As a result of National Fraud Initiative work £450m of fraud has been detected.

Our participation in the National Fraud Initiative means that information about you will be shared with the Audit Commission for the purposes of data matching. The law requires that we release this information and it does not require your consent.

However, numerous safeguards are taken to protect your personal data and these are set out in the Audit Commission's Code of Data Matching Practice.

Furthermore, the National Fraud Initiative ensures full compliance with all data protection and human rights legislation.