National Fraud Initiative

National Fraud Initiative (NFI) Data Matching

Woking Borough Council is required by law to protect the public funds it administers. It may share information provided to it with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.

The Audit Commission appoints the auditor to audit the accounts of Woking Borough Council. It is also responsible for carrying out data matching exercises.

The Audit Commissions National Fraud Initiative (NFI) exercise is the largest public sector anti-fraud data matching exercise carried out in the UK. The Audit Commission has reported that the most recent exercise carried out in 2008/09 helped trace £215m of fraud, overpayments and error.

The Council has participated in the NFI for a number of years by supplying information to the Audit Commission for Housing and Council Tax Benefit, Housing Rents and its own staff payroll. In 2007 this was extended to Council Tax information in order to identify Single Person Discount fraud. In 2008 it was further extended to include members allowances, concessionary fare passes, residents parking permits, compensation claimants, market traders/operators, taxi drivers and personal licences to sell alcohol.

Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one body against other computer records held by either the same or another body to see how far they match. This is usually personal information and is, therefore, subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act. Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent or erroneous claims and payments to be identified. Where such matches are found there is no presumption of fraud or error until the match is investigated in detail.

The Council is required to provide particular sets of data to the Audit Commission for each matching exercise. The specification for each of these data sets is set out in the Audit Commissions guidance, which can be found at http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi/instructions/dataspecifications/pages/default.aspx

The use of data by the Audit Commission in a data matching exercise is carried out under its powers in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998. It does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the Data Protection Act 1998. Data matching by the Audit Commission is, however, subject to a Code of Practice. This may be found at http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi/pages/codeofdatamatchingpractice.aspx

For further information on the Audit Commissions legal powers and the reasons why it matches particular information, see their Fair Processing Notice at http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi/instructions/fairprocessingnotice/pages/default.aspx; or contact the Head of NFI (National Fraud Initiative) on 0844 798 2222, or email nfiqueries@audit-commission.gov.uk.

If you have any queries about how your personal information is processed by the Council, please visit our Data Protection webpage at http://www.woking.gov.uk/council/about/customercarestandards/foi/dataprotection