Procurement, Finance & Fraud
Identifying Internal and External Fraud Within Your Organisation
Knowing the difference between internal and external fraud within an organisation is important to ensure that you can adequately protect your organisation and have measures in place to protect against both.
External Fraud – External fraud occurs when individuals or organisations outside of the organisation commit fraud against the target organisation. In some cases, the technique used to target the organisation may be the same as the techniques used for personal fraud. The scammer may obtain the personal information from the intended target via phishing or other means, but rather than use the information to target the individual, they use the individual’s information to target the organisation.
Internal Fraud – Internal fraud can be classified as fraud committed by an employee against their organisation. This may be both small-scale, such as using false receipts to claim travel and accommodation allowances, or large scale multi coordinated attacks that can cripple an organisation.
What Can the Public Sector do to Prepare for the Upcoming Procurement Bill 2023?
With the upcoming Procurement Bill 2023 nearing the final stages, its important that public sector organisations take into consideration the impact that new changes may bring. The government has released guidance on four areas where early consideration and action can best help organisation prepare for the changes:
- Processes and policies – make sure your current processes and procedures are robust on areas such as pre-market engagement and supplier evaluation/assessment.
- Systems – Familiarise yourself with the document ‘Transforming Public Procurement – Our Transparency Ambition’ which outlines the government proposals to improve transparency of UK public contracts and spending.
- People – consider the procurement and contract management capability across your organisation, and consider benchmarking your organisation against relevant commercial and procurement operating standards and other comparable organisations.
- Transition – ensure contract registers and details are up to date, conduct a review of pipelines to identify planned procurement activity over the next 18 months and engage with your key supply chain about the new regime.