National Fraud Initiative
Protecting public money
We have a legal duty to protect public money we control. We must use any information you provide to prevent and detect fraud. To do this, we may share the information with other organisations that also audit or contol public money.
The government watchdog, the Audit Commission, audits our accounts. It also carries out 'data matching'. This means comparing computer records held by one organisation with other computer records held by the same organisation, or those held by a separate organisation, to see how they match up. This is usually personal information.
Code of practice
Data matching identifies fraudulent claims and payments. If the Audit Commission find an inconsistency in the records, they carry out an investigation to check whether there is fraud, error or another explanation.
We must provide data to the Audit Commission for this exercise. The information we must provide, and a code of practice governing its use, are set out on the Commission's National Fraud Initiative web pages.
Legal power
The legal power to use this information is given to the Audit Commission in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998. It does not require the consent of individuals to use this information as described in the Data Protection Act 1998.
