GovWire

Help us reduce insider fraud in charities

The Charity Commission

October 27
12:48 2017

One of the most damaging types of fraud is insider fraud. This is fraud committed by someone involved with the charity, whether a trustee, an employee or volunteer.

As well as taking money away from the charity that could be spent on beneficiaries and the end cause, its an abuse of the relationship and position of trust between the individual and the charity.

Insider fraud can have a damaging impact on a charitys reputation and the morale of other staff and volunteers. It can also dent donors and beneficiaries confidence in the charity and its work.

As part of Charity Fraud Awareness Week 2017 we want to find out more about insider fraud in charities. We want to work with, and listen to charities about their experiences of dealing with insider fraud to:

  • identify common themes
  • highlight good practice in charities
  • help other charities learn lessons and share their experience
  • improve our guidance to help other charities in the future

If you are or were involved in a charity that experienced insider fraud, we would like to hear from you. How did you spot it? With hindsight, did you miss the signals? If you did not report it at the time, why not?

If you believe your charity prevented insider fraud by counter fraud actions, what good practice or advice would you like to share with other charities?

We are also interested in hearing from those who have knowledge and experience of investigating fraud, or implementing fraud prevention in charities including:

  • professional advisers
  • professional membership bodies
  • charity insurers

If you think you can help, complete the relevant survey by Friday 8 December 2017.

Insider fraud survey for charities

Insider fraud survey for advisers, charity umbrella groups, professional bodies and others

If possible, please provide your name and full contact details with the email so we can get in touch to find out more if needed. We will accept anonymous submissions too.

Dont use the surveys to formally report a recent fraud as a serious incident at your charity. If you need to do this, read and follow our guidance about reporting serious incidents.

We are not collecting or recording information about individual charities through the survey for regulatory compliance purposes. But, if we are concerned about what you have told us we will request that you submit a whistleblowing or serious incident report. We will then respond in line with our usual procedures.

After the closing date, we will analyse the findings and publish a report of the review on our website. It will summarise the themes and common issues, and share good examples of counter fraud and detection practices.

No individual responses or names will be published, unless you specifically state in your response you are happy to be named or quoted.

If you are a member of the public and have a complaint about a charity, find out what to do if you need to complain about a charity.

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