Dear Jen,

Today we published our review of the fraud and computer misuse statistics for England and Wales produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). I would like to thank your team for its positive engagement throughout the review.

This review complements our review of the quality of police recorded crime statistics for England and Wales. We reviewed the police recorded fraud and computer misuse statistics separately as the processes for recording these crimes are different from those used to record other crime types. Unlike the police recorded crime review, we also examined the coherence and value of the police recorded fraud and computer misuse statistics and the fraud and computer misuse estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

We have concerns about some aspects of the quality of the Action Fraud data, including the City of London Police’s quality assurance arrangements. Some of our concerns are linked to the Action Fraud system, which has limitations and is being replaced by a new system this year. We also found that the Home Office’s oversight of data quality needs to be strengthened and identified gaps in your published information on the quality of the statistics.

Given the range of quality issues that we identified, and the planned changes to the Action Fraud system, we currently see no credible way for the police recorded fraud and computer misuse statistics to become accredited official statistics. Nevertheless, users must be assured about the quality of these statistics and therefore you, the Home Office and the City of London Police should work together to make the necessary quality improvements.

Our report makes several recommendations for ONS, including expanding your published information on quality; working with the Home Office and the City of London Police to understand the impact of the new fraud recording system on the quality of the data and statistics; and clarifying the definition of ‘police recorded fraud’.

You and the Home Office should develop a joint action plan that sets out how you are going to address the recommendations in our report. The action plan should be published by the end of 2025.

We look forward to continuing to work with you and your team as you make improvements to the statistics.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Humpherson
Director General for OSR