Publication: The National Fraud Initiative in Scotland

The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) in Scotland is a counter-fraud exercise led by Audit Scotland and overseen by the Cabinet Office for the UK as a whole. It is part of a range of measures in place across the Scottish public sector which aim to prevent and detect fraud. The NFI runs every two years and uses data matching to compare information that different public bodies hold about individuals, and that might suggest the existence of fraud or error.

Our last NFI report in June 2018 highlighted that a total of £18.6 million of fraud and error had been recorded in the previous two years in Scotland. This year’s report will comment on the amount of fraud and error identified in the most recent NFI data matching activity. It will use case studies from public bodies to illustrate the impact that NFI is having in Scotland. It will also review how well Scottish public bodies are managing the exercise, including their investigation of the data matches.

To be published summer 2020.