Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to improve the efficiency of Action Fraud’s customer service; and whether she has plans to introduce a minimum standard of care for fraud victims using that service.

The Home Office is working with the City of London Police to replace and upgrade Action Fraud, with the new service expected to be fully operational by 2024. Improvements to the existing system are being made on an ongoing basis as part of the upgrade.

We have already improved the victim experience by enhancing the technology and increasing the staff numbers in the call centre. We will launch a new Action Fraud website in 2023. The National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit, which is being rolled out nationally, provides specialist support to fraud and cybercrime victims.

As part of the Police Uplift Programme, 725 posts have been dedicated to tackling Serious Organised Crime including fraud. Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables will decide how to allocate further resource they receive through the Programme within their forces. Separately, over the next three years the Home Office is spending some of the £400 million secured to fight Economic Crime in the last Spending Review, to provide additional specialist fraud officers into the City of London Police, Regional Organised Crime Units and the National Crime Agency.