Fraud Awareness & Response Benchmarking Survey

The report shows the results of UNIAC’s benchmarking survey into universities’ approaches to making staff aware of the risk of fraud and preparing to respond if potential fraud incidents are identified. The objectives of the project were to:

help institutions benchmark, and if appropriate identify opportunities to strengthen, their own current Fraud Awareness & Response practices; and
provide participants with some good practice examples from across the sector and some insight into peer approaches and practices to counter fraud.

The British Universities Finance Directors Group (BUFDG) completed a survey of fraud risks for Higher Education institutions in September 2013 and this report can be seen to complement this with some more in-depth analysis of a smaller sample of institutions.

Benchmarking is not a precise tool as no two organisations have the same business model, shape, size and geographic location. Therefore, benchmark results should not be taken as the only measure of performance, but they can act as an indicator of where potential improvements can be made.

Our review assumed that all institutions already meet the minimum funding council requirements and Audit Codes of Practice and therefore did not intend to assess compliance with these. Rather, we sought to identify examples of good practice that add value and exceed minimum requirements.

If you would like a copy of this report, please get in touch.