When the CIPFA Code of Practice on Managing the Risk of Fraud and Corruption was launched in 2014, the response from across the public sector counter fraud community was overwhelmingly positive.
It was hailed as “a useful tool for leaders to assess their resilience and capacity to tackle fraud” and all public bodies were invited to adopt it at board level to guide future counter fraud strategy.
Download the Code here.
The Code sets out the standards all organisations should be aiming for, in the form of five core principles:
- Acknowledge the responsibility of the governing body for countering fraud and corruption
- Identify the fraud and corruption risks
- Develop an appropriate counter fraud and corruption strategy
- Provide resources to implement the strategy
- Take action in response to fraud and corruption
It also lists the activities and steps organisations can take to ensure the principles are actively upheld.
Measuring performance
As a stand-alone document, the Code offers a clear framework for developing and maintaining an effective counter fraud response. But its real value lies in measuring your existing arrangements against the five core principles.
Diana Melville, CIPFA Governance Advisor and one of the authors of the Code, explains: “Given the staggering amounts of money lost to fraudsters each year, public sector bodies have no choice but to put in place processes and procedures to address the risk of fraud.
“But how do organisations know whether these are sufficient? To answer this need, we have developed an interactive Assessment Tool. It lets you compare your arrangements to those recommended in the Code. This in turn helps you to identify where your strengths lie and where remedial action may be needed.”
Easy to use, the Assessment Tool also allows organisations to:
- generate reports and graphs to illustrate your performance against the code
- view examples of good practice to help inform your assessment
- record comments, providing a robust evidence base for the assessment
- share and track progress with your team
- have a robust, evidence based assessment of your counter fraud arrangements to support your governance statement and inform your development plans
- benchmark your organisation against others, giving you an invaluable insight into your peers’ experience.
Watch our video on how the Assessment Tool works.
Upcoming workshop
On 6 December 2016, CIPFA is hosting a workshop to help you answer the question of whether your arrangements are robust enough to tackle the risk of fraud.
You will be taken through each of the five principles, focusing on potential areas of difficulty and applying the Assessment Tool to your own organisation’s approach.
Each organisation participating will receive a free copy of CIPFA’s Assessment Tool and can receive a free benchmark report of their performance against the Code’s first principle, ‘Acknowledge the responsibility of the governing body for countering fraud and corruption’.
The workshop will be facilitated by Diana Melville, one of the authors of the CIPFA Counter Fraud Code, together with Alan Day, counter fraud expert and author of CIPFA’s Guidance Notes that accompany the counter fraud code.
Book your place now.