City of London Police have engaged Capita and PwC to take over fraud and cybercrime reporting from the criticized Action Fraud.
Action Fraud faced scrutiny following an undercover investigation by The Times, which revealed inadequate call handling and problems with the algorithm used for filtering and prioritizing cases. A minimal number of calls resulted in charges.
In March, a report from a committee of MPs indicated that Action Fraud’s reputation had been severely damaged due to its failure to manage victims’ expectations and a lack of action on reported cases.
Capita and PwC have entered into a five-year contract valued at £50 million to manage contact center operations and develop new fraud reporting tools. The current service, operated by Capita, handles over 350,000 calls and receives 2.3 million unique website visits annually.
PwC will offer technological services for crime and intelligence management that support the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB).
Additionally, the new service has secured £152 million in funding from the Home Office and City of London Corporation to facilitate the integration of fraud and cybercrime reports from across the country.
Angela McLaren, commissioner of the City of London Police, remarked that transforming Action Fraud and the NFIB is an essential part of the national Fraud Strategy. She emphasized that selecting the right supply chain was crucial and expressed confidence in the quality suppliers chosen to assist in achieving their goals.
Capita has experienced the serious impacts of cybercrime firsthand, having suffered a hack in March that affected 90 organizations due to breaches of personal information. This incident led the Pensions Regulator (TPR) to contact over 300 pension funds to verify if their data had been compromised.
A second data breach was reported in May when it was discovered that Capita had mistakenly stored benefits data files in publicly accessible storage, leading several councils to express concerns about potential data compromise.