Fraud report 2009: a survey into fraud and financial risk management Southern England

Fraud is a major risk to the survival of businesses in any adverse economic climate. As ‘UK plc’ battles against the worst recession for a generation or more, this Fraud and Risk Management survey provides an extremely pertinent and timely report on the readiness and ability of businesses to combat the threat of fraud. It is also an important survey because it is based on ‘honest responses’ from organisations in Southern England that completed a secure online questionnaire. This survey provides a realistic insight into actual fraud, its risk management, and attitudes to fraud within a wide cross section of industry sectors, rather than just fraud as reported through official channels. Conducted jointly by BDO Stoy Hayward and the University of Portsmouth this study focused on assessing the level of employee fraud and evaluating the basic control procedures in place to reduce the risk of fraud occurring. Almost one third of our 69 respondents had discovered a fraud in the last two years.