POL00085009
POL00085009
BOEP Debt Review — Workflow Management Tools - Terms of Reference
Change Direct Access To Debt Project Lead TBA
Initiative/Project Recovery Systems
Sponsor TBA Version Draft 0.1
Programme BOEP Date 7" December 2009
Alignment
Author Andy Greening
Section 1. Proposed Change Description
Background — Former Subpostmaster debt at the end of September ’09 was C. £11.4M. The
briefly describe what . . .
is behind the need to I full year forecast for 2009/10 is debt recovery in the region of £3.42M. The
change, how this - oo. . . .
proposal emerged, I Security and Investigation Team play an instrumental part in existing debt
any issues/problems
it is addressing etc. I "@COVery processes. The Security and Investigation Team are currently
investigating C. £3.61M of former Subpostmaster Debt. The Security and
Investigation Team recovered approximately £520K between April-Sept ’09.
Total debt recovery for the same period was C. £1.7M. Within the Security and
Investiagtion Team there are currently 3 Accredited Financial Investigators. All
Financial Investigators are accredited through the National Policing
Improvement Agency (NPIA). The NPIA Proceeds of Crime Centre has statutory
responsibility for training, accrediting and monitoring financial investigators who
work in various organisations. The NPIA offers a comprehensive training
portfolio, which upon successful completion, empowers and equips individuals
with a range of skills and tools to conduct financial investigations under the
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (See WWW.npia.police.uk for further information)
No other teams involved in the debt recovery process contain this specialist
knowledge or toolkit to help recover monies.
Tracking down criminals, and seizing and confiscating former Subpostmaster’s
assets is a fundamental part of the debt recovery process. To help maximise
debt recovery an Accredited Financial Investigator has access to a number of
powerful data sources and information systems. These are detailed below.
A Suspicious Activity Report (or SAR) is a report regarding suspicious or
potentially suspicious activity. The purpose of the Suspicious Activity Report is
to report known or suspected violations of law or suspicious activity observed by
Financial Institutions. In many instances, SARs have been instrumental in
enabling law enforcement. In short, Suspicious Activity Reports made available
by the financial services industry and other business Sectors provide valuable
intelligence. The Financial Investigation Unit currently only has remote access
to this database.
In Confidence 21/12/2009 3
POL00085009
POL00085009
BOEP Debt Review — Workflow Management Tools - Terms of Reference
The Joint Asset Recovery Database (JARD) records asset recovery information
for all law enforcement activity across the UK, and provides support to financial
investigators wishing to retrieve information. No recovery of monies (i.e.
Repayment of debt) is permitted through the existing legal system unless
specific details pertinent to the debt case are recorded onto JARD. Money Web
provides further information providing access to a network of Accredited
Financial Investigators in working in other institutions (e.g. Banks). A key issue
with the existing process is that the Financial Investigation Unit only has remote
access to these systems.
As a consequence, it is necessary to access these databases by pre-arranging
visits to local and / or national Police Stations. This is clearly very inefficient and
resource hungry. The current set up also drives the wrong behaviours because
seldom do Accredited Financial Investigators take these lengthy steps to
acquire this type of intelligence. The Team dealt with 42 debt cases during
2008/09.
Proposed Change I Conduct a feasibility study to assess the costs and benefits of having direct
— briefly describe the
change, that is being I access to (1) Suspicious Activity Report (2) Joint Assest Recovery Database
proposed, what will
be different, give and (3) Money Web. i.e. Avoid having to physically pre-arrange visits to local
rosie ee and or national Police Stations to access the information to support debt
recovery processes.
Change Scope - See above.
identify the key
areas, processes,
and systems etc that
are proposed to be
in scope. Also note
any explicit and
relevant areas that
are out of scope and
why.
Section 2. Proposed Outcome/Benefit
alee roeaiaa Detailed benefits (tangible and non tangible) will be identified as part of the
initiative will deliver. I feasibility. The Following are initial thoughts on benefits that could be achieved
additionally to the outcomes detailed above:
e More timely and robust intelligence to increase debt recovery.
e Increased efficiency and reduction in debt recovery lead times.
Consequences of I Low quality debt recovery intelligence and lengthy inefficent debt recovery lead
Not Progressing
Initiative times.
Section 3. Work Plan
In Confidence 21/12/2009 3
POLO0085009
POL00085009
BOEP Debt Review — Workflow Management Tools - Terms of Reference
pa Fy The primary activity is to conduct a feasibility study that will clearly show the
eliverables —
describe the costs and benefits of having direct access to the above systems.
deliverables
expected
Timescales - if Planned Start: 2"¢ Jan 2010
there is a target
timescale to Planned Finish: 31% Mar 2010
complete this then
please state here Estimated Effort in Days:
It is estimated that approx. 10 days effort will be required to conduct the
feasibility.
Resources — TBA
identify any known
resources planned to
work on the initiative
no cenar eras This initiative is of paramount importance to increase debt recovery. The priority
le ranking 01 ie
initiative will be determined by the cost / benefit analysis of this feasibility study.
Ha a - I The following are key stakeholders initially identified who will be required to
identify any
stakeholders that will I input to the initiative and review the recommendations.
need to be involved
— internal and
oxen) Internal Stakeholders (POL):
¢ Alison Bolsover — P&BA Branch Conformance & Liaison
¢ lain Murphy — Security & Investigation
e Andy Hayward — Security & Investigation
¢ Ged Harbinson — Security & Investigation
« Graham Ward — Security & Investigation
e Paul Southin — Security & Investigation
In Confidence 21/12/2009 3