Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police staff in England and Wales were dedicated to working on fraud cases as of (a) 1 January 2017, (b) 1 January 2018, (c) 1 January 2019, (d) 1 January 2020, (e) 1 January 2021 and (f) 9 December 2021.

The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the primary role of officers, staff and PCSOs in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales

Function 7c – “Investigations (Economic Crime)” - includes officers, staff, and PCSOs working primarily in the following roles:

• Financial Investigation Unit – responsible for investigation of all confiscation cases, deal with cash seizures over £1,000 and investigate drug trafficking and money laundering offences.
• Cheque and credit card fraud unit, responsible for processing all reports of theft / misuse of chequebooks and credit / debit cards.
• Regional Asset Recovery Team – dealing with confiscation cases but on a regional basis.
• All Financial Investigators.
• POCA (proceeds of Crime Act) money

Tables F1, F2 and F3 of the data tables that accompany the police workforce statistics contain this information, and are available in each annual publication here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales