Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of criminal fraud were reported to the National Fraud Reporting Centre, Action Fraud, in each of the last 12 months for which information is available; and how many of those cases (a) have been or are being investigated and (b) have led to prosecution.

The Home Office collects quarterly data on the number of fraud offences reported to Action Fraud via the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB). The most recently available data are for the year ending December 2016, and are available in Table QT1 of the Office for National Statistics’ ‘Crime in England and Wales: Quarterly Data Tables’ at this website:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesquarterlydatatables.

Information on the number of fraud offences that are disseminated to the police by the NFIB for investigation is published on an annual basis. Information for the year ending March 2017 will be published on the 20 July in ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales, year ending March 2017’.

The Home Office does not hold information on the number of fraud investigations which have led to prosecutions. The Ministry of Justice are responsible for prosecutions data.