New Public Management, Old Populism and the Policing of Fraud

Abstract

While the cost of fraud is difficult to determine, it is significantly greater than other crimes. Nevertheless fraud has not been a policing priority either for governments or for individual police forces. The provision of policing resources has declined in favour of other policing objectives where there is a continuing emphasis on a political agenda concerned with public order and property crime. At the same time, the resources which are devoted to fraud have, as with the police generally, been subject those changes which reflect the themes of new public management (NPM). This review of the development of the policing of fraud in the UK draws upon the first full survey ever undertaken of UK police fraud squads. The purpose of the survey was to consider the structure, staffing and activities of the squads in the light of the changes to policing in the past decade, as well as the priorities determined by governments, to assess the implications for the future policing of fraud. The article concludes that, unless there are re-organisations along the lines of serious crime, such as regional or national fraud squads, then the likelihood is that the investigation of fraud will continue to be limited both by the changes consequential on the wider application of NPM to policing, and by Old Populism - governments' attention to those policing issues which will impact on public opinion and electoral support.