UK government has developed a new strategy to combat fraud and scams.

The Government has made crime reduction and economic growth central to its Manifesto. Fraud against individuals and business is the largest crime type in the UK and costs our economy £14.4 billion in 2023–2024.

Tackling fraud is essential to cutting crime and strengthening economic resilience.
Recognising the increasing number of fraud incidents, high value of fraud losses and harm from fraud, the Government’s Manifesto set out a clear commitment to deliver a new Fraud Strategy.
The Government will invest over £250 million between 2026 and 2029 to deliver this Strategy, aimed at combatting fraud against individuals and businesses.
This strategy introduces a new system-wide approach that recognises the agility of criminals and the need for wide-raging intervention. Critical to this approach is close collaboration between Government, regulators, law enforcement, national security agencies, industry and non-profit organisations.

This approach is in three parts:

DISRUPT (pages 14-31): This Strategy outlines our approach to disrupting the tools, methods, systems and vulnerabilities exploited by criminals, making it harder for them to commit all forms of fraud. By investing in earlier intervention, we increase our chance of stopping the fraud before it happens. Interventions include:

• Launching the public-private Online Crime Centre to share data and collaborate on interventions that eliminate online fraud at scale (from Q2 2026);
• Sponsoring the Global Fraud Summit to raise awareness and lead the
  international response to fraud (Q1 2026); and
• Collaborating with the telecommunications, online and financial services
  sectors to deliver interventions that address their vulnerability to criminal
  exploitation (from Q1 2026).
  
  SAFEGUARD (pages 32-41):
• Criminals increasingly exploit vulnerabilities in individuals, society, and businesses, many of which shift over time. We will strengthen resilience so fraud can be detected and repelled before harm occurs.
  Interventions include:
• Expanding the Stop! Think Fraud campaign to a broader range of fraud types, to build individuals’ and businesses’ resilience to fraud (from Q1 2026);
• Enhancing our law enforcement PROTECT response by increasing data-led proactive policing and providing targeted support to at-risk individuals (from Q1 2026); and
• Supporting specialist cyber resilience centres, to provide advice to businesses on how to improve their resistance to fraud (from Q1 2026).

RESPOND (pages 42-53):

• As fraud grows in scale and complexity, a coordinated,
• victim-centred response is essential. This pillar brings together reporting, victim
• support, reimbursement, criminal and civil justice. Interventions include:

• Operating Report Fraud, the new, streamlined reporting service, to provide a robust and improved reporting mechanism for victims of fraud (from Q1 2026);
• Introducing a Fraud Victims Charter which will set out a minimum standard of care across all support providers, to ensure consistent victim support (Q2 2027);
  and
• Strengthening criminal and civil justice, by improving court process and
  exploring additional civil law penalties, to ensure criminals face justice (by

This strategy also sets out how the Government will measure and oversee its delivery, supported by a strengthened governance framework based on leadership and accountability across the counter-fraud system. The Fraud Strategy will support the Police Reform White Paper’s commitment on smarter crime prevention and keeping the public safe through its partnership approach to preventing fraud. This includes the Government’s broader plans for Police Reform whereby overall responsibility for Fraud, Economic Crime and Cyber Crime will transfer to the National Police Service (NPS) with the National Crime Agency (NCA).5 The Strategy
also works in parallel with the Public Sector Fraud Authority who lead the
Government’s response to fraud against the public sector.

View the Fraud policy online

Most of our readers know that we distributed the Fraud letters, which were compiled by City of London Police who are the main coordinators of Fraud policing. The monthly Fraud letters are currently no longer sent to boroughs.

Commissioner of the City of London Police, Pete O’Doherty, and City of London Corporation Policy Chairman, Chris Hayward, said:

“This strategy is a major step forward in the fight against fraud – a crime that devastates lives and undermines the UK’s economic security.

“The City of London Police is at the centre of the fightback. Our specialist expertise, national reach, and recently launched Report Fraud service make us uniquely equipped to tackle fraud, economic, and cyber crime at scale.

“That leadership is backed by the City Corporation’s £600m Salisbury Square development, delivering a state-of-the-art policing facility and justice quarter to strengthen the UK’s response.” see link