Transparency data

Joint Fraud Taskforce board minutes: 7 December 2018

Published 23 July 2021

Minutes from the Extraordinary Joint Fraud Taskforce Management Board on 7 December 2018

Attendees

  • Mike Haley (chair) (Cifas)
  • Owen Rowland (Home Office)
  • John Formby (UK Finance)
  • Alix Newbold (CoLP)
  • Jai Krishnan (Home Office)
  • Simon Fell (Cifas)
  • Scott Reeve (Cifas)
  • Melissa Dring (NTS)
  • Jim Winters (Barclays)
  • Lee Bradley (Lloyds)
  • Alasdair MacFarlane (RBS)
  • Neil Masters (NTS)

Agenda item 1: Structure of JFT Management Board

1. Mike Haley as the new chair of the JFT welcomed attendees to the extraordinary JFT Management Board which would focus on the structure, governance, and transparency of JFT going forward, as well as deciding the work programme for JFT 2.0.

2. MH outlined his vision for the JFT 2.0 going in to 2019. The JFT should focus on volume fraud, should commit to raising the profile of, and response to, fraud, and should continue to develop public/private partnerships. The Board proceeded to work through the slide pack sent out in advance of the meeting detailing suggested governance, structure and work stream arrangements.

3. MH put to the Board that the current board of the JFT is unwieldy and makes decision making and consensus difficult. MH asked the Board to consider a smaller board of no more than 10 organisations with each sector represented by one senior level decision maker with the right level of connectivity with stakeholders/partners. The initial list of suggested representatives to the Board included financial services, insurers, and telecommunications, retailers, government (Home Office), Cifas (currently represented by the chair), National Trading Standards and law enforcement (CoLP).

4. The Board agreed in principle to a smaller core board of no more than 10 organisations, though consideration should be given to whether the remaining Board places should be offered to a number of organisations. Board members felt strongly that National Crime Agency (also speaking for NECC or vice versa) were important to have around the table, other suggestions included the Attorney General’s Office (CPS), Fraud Advisory Panel, victims groups, Electronic Money Association, and Cyber Defence Alliance.

5. LB reminded the Board that it is important to ensure JFT 2.0 considers everything that is going on in the fraud landscape and that we are appropriately joined up and not duplicating. LB also advised the Board to consider that new sectors joining JFT will also have their own priorities that would have to be considered.

6. CISPs were also raised as a key sector to engage with and MH advised that JFT will seek to engage them via TECH UK.

7. It was agreed that the core Management Board should meet once every two months. It was also agreed that there will be a wider group made up of JFT stakeholders that meets quarterly (prior to a core Management Board) to be keep abreast of JFT progress and decision making and inform the thinking of the Management Board. It was agreed the core Management Board should set strategic direction and take key decisions to drive activity of JFT.

8. It was agreed that Board members should be responsible for the delivery of work under the JFT and that each Board member supported by a deputy would ensure progress on the work delivered under their work stream.

9. It was agreed that the Board would set priorities informed by the threats identified by understanding and assessment of the threat. OR suggested that those accountable for delivering work need to be accountable for identifying metrics for success. The Board would need to decide how much of this would be at Board level and how much at project level.

10. The issue of resource was raised and MH confirmed that the Home Office remained committed to the JFT and would continue to provide full secretariat support with assistance from Cifas. JK also suggested that consultants could be used to support JFT work. The Board agreed that it was key to identify the right resource to tackle JFT projects.

11. MH suggested that to improve transparency for the JFT that a dedicated website containing strategic priorities, deliverables, redacted minutes and details of the current members should be created. JF confirmed that UKF already held domains for JFT and that these could be used to create the website.

12. There were no comments on the slides for ‘Aims and Strategic Objectives’ and ‘re-set work streams for JFT 2.0’.

Agenda item 2: Future Work Programme of JFT

13. The Board reviewed the list of current JFT work to identify which should remain under the auspices of JFT and which should be removed.

  • a. The Board agreed that elements of funds repatriation should remain part of the JFT especially parts of the work that face legal and regulatory challenges. Work on Card Not Present should focus on the ecosystem rather than the technical development currently in train, for example looking at work to tackle data breaches.
  • b. The Board agreed that JFT will act as a body to coordinate and amplify fraud prevention messages for the consumer across multiple sectors/stakeholders. The existing work on Take 5 will form part of this initiative.
  • c. The Board agreed that JFT Management Board should seek to uplift Collective Response to become the Fraud counterpart of JMLIT. The Board noted that this would involve significant resources and senior level buy in from all JFT partners.
  • d. Work around Banking Interventions and BSI PAS will continue under JFT for the time being with a 6 month review. The Multi-Agency pilot will continue and report to JFT. The Myth Buster work will not be part of JFT going forward and will merge with ongoing UKF work in this area.

14. The Board then reviewed the proposed projects for JFT.

  • a. The Board agreed that tackling issues around the mules’ ecosystem has a role in JFT. UKF have a mules strategy developing through their Economic Crime Board (ECB) and so the Board agreed that JFT would focus on the elements not being tackled by the ECB strategy i.e. recruitment issues with social media companies.
  • b. The Board also agreed that the disruption of mule herders/networks should feed into an enhanced Collective Response.
  • c. The Board unanimously agreed that port out fraud and call number spoofing were priorities which should be tackled by JFT.
  • d. The Board agreed that elements of data breaches should be tackled by JFT and other partners as appropriate. It was noted that the Management Board should be mindful of other work in this area and identify where JFT can add value.
  • e. The Board agreed that UKF legal and regulatory paper would form the basis of the legal and regulatory work stream.
  • f. The Board agreed that any other work would be driven through understanding threat, and assessment of the current landscape.

Agenda item 3: Governance and Transparency

15. Points around governance and transparency were covered under Agenda item 1.

Next Steps & AOB

16. The Board agreed that papers outlining the decisions of the JFT EGM would be sent to the current JFT Management Board for comment and feedback.

17. The Board would also submit nominations for the positions on a revised board including suggestions for additional organisations to fill the remaining board places.

18. The Home Office will then submit a revised paper outlining JFT 2.0 to the Home Secretary for sign off.