The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) is a biennial UK-wide counter-fraud exercise that helps prevent and detect fraud by sharing and matching sets of data electronically. For Wales, the most recent exercise saw 49 organisations take part.

The outcomes for Wales from NFI 2022-23 are £0.6 million more than in 2020-21, which is primarily because of a rise in the number of fraudulent or erroneous claims for housing benefit and council tax single person discount. However, falls in other areas, such as a fall in the cancellation of blue badges, partly offset these increases.

Of the £7.1 million reported outcomes, 97% are from local authority data matches relating to council tax, housing benefit, blue badges, housing waiting lists, and pensions.

The success of the NFI depends on how well participant bodies assess and review data matches, and then record the outcomes. Some bodies are doing good work on this, but our review of data matching reports highlights inconsistencies in local follow-up arrangements and some large variations in outcomes between similar participants.

As well as identifying, recovering, and preventing financial loss, the NFI delivers wider qualitative benefits. It can provide assurances over, and identify opportunities to improve, the effectiveness of financial and other administrative processes and procedures.

While not all participants will necessarily see significant positive outcomes themselves, one key benefit of a UK-wide data matching exercise is that it enables matches between bodies and across national borders. Data provided by Welsh participants for NFI 2022-23 helped bodies outside Wales identify outcomes worth £0.2 million. Similarly, data from other UK participants has helped identify outcomes in Wales.

We are continuing to look for opportunities to raise the profile and increase the scope and coverage of the NFI in Wales as part of our wider commitment to fraud analytics work.