Member Article

Newcastle businesses learn to kick fraud into touch

Local businesses from Newcastle met last night (18 April) to hear how the North East can combat the rising tide of fraud, at an event organised by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), at the Royal Station Hotel.

Every organisation in Newcastle will at least once have been exposed to fraud through being exploited by weaknesses in their control systems, according to the speaker at the event, former Northumbria Economic Crime Unit police officer Frank Nesbitt. Frank is an expert in forensic services and fraud and Managing Director at Tyne and Wear based Quo Vadis Forensic Limited.

The talk highlighted some red flag areas to help businesses detect fraud and to understand the problems that could arise.

Frank Nesbitt explained, “Recent statistics indicate that kicking fraud into touch is proving to be very difficult and challenging to those charged with preventing and detecting fraud. As a result of the current economic climate some projects both in the private and public sectors in Newcastle will be funding some minor and, or, major criminal activity without even being aware of it, simply because of such weaknesses of controls”.

Rebecca Gooch ACMA, CGMA, Chair of the Newcastle branch of CIMA added, “Fraud is increasing nationwide and the North East is not immune. Hopefully those Newcastle-based management accountants who attended the event will be more aware of what they can do to put measures in place spot the signs, stop it happening to their business and as a result prevent a lot of serious financial pain .”

In his talk, Frank emphasised the many pitfalls and loopholes that can be exploited by determined fraudsters during the course of a contract from the initial tendering stage through to the final billing. The talk covered procurement/contract fraud which has seen a sharp rise due to the increase of outsourcing, in particular the identification of the loopholes and the recognition of signs that could point to fraud in a contract process.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by CIMA UK Regional News .