National Fraud Initiative

National Fraud Initiative (NFI) - Data Matching

Woking Borough Council has a legal duty to protect the public funds it administers, and to take measures to prevent and detect fraud. Some of these measures include sharing information provided to it with other bodies responsible for either auditing or administering public funds. The National Fraud Initiative is one of these measures.

The NFI is an anti-fraud data matching exercise carried out by the Audit Commission and is the largest public sector anti-fraud exercise carried out in the UK. The Audit Commission's latest newsletter has reported that savings from the most recent exercise have already topped £140million nationally. In the past the NFI formed part of the external audit of Woking Borough Council's accounts, however, new statutory powers granted as part of the provisions of the Serious Crime Act 2007 now means that the Audit Commisson can carry out data matching as either part of an audit or otherwise.

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 will be 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. This is invariably 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 Commission's NFI handbook.

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 which is approved by Parliament.

For further information on the Audit Commission's legal powers and the reasons why it matches particular information, see their Fair Processing Notice; or contact the Head of NFI (National Fraud Initiative) on 0844 797 222, 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.