National Fraud Initiative (NFI)
Payroll
The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) takes place every 2 years. Every participating organisation, (which is most of the public sector - Local Authorites, NHS, Fire Service etc ) submits their payroll database for matching against a number of other databases, including, but not exclusively:
- the payroll database of each of the other participating authorities - to check for those who have more than one employment. We then check sick records with the Trust and ask the other employer if they have been working for them during these times;
- various benefits - housing, blue badge etc - to check is someone is earning more money than they are telling the benefit authority - or if someone who has a blue badgeis actually dead!
- immigration records - to check whether those who require a visa to work have a legitimate and valid visa;
- National Insurance numbers - to make sure everyone is using the correct number;
- NHS Pensions Authority - to check those who are in receipt of a pension but are still working have declared the correct amount of their pension.
Creditors
The NFI also checks invoices paid over the preceding 3 years to make sure, for example, duplicates have not been paid and the correct VAT has been charged.
Where are we now?
Matches from NFI 2010 are currently being checked and the exercise will be completed by December 2011.