From auditor to frauditor

: developing the internal audit role beyond fraud risk assessment to detect and investigate fraud in the UK Public Sector

Abstract

The commentary sets out the candidate’s ideas for a new differentiated paradigm within the white collar crime subset of criminology for fraud auditing and the frauditor concept evolved from the candidate’s interest in combatting fraud against the public sector. Over a public sector career auditing or training auditors from 1971 to 2009 the candidate honed his thinking on the role of the internal auditor in relation to fraud, culminating in the publication in 2010 and 2012 of two books written by the candidate based around forensic internal auditing and the frauditor to counter fraud against organisations. The candidate had realised during a five-year period in the mid-1980s as a full-time lecturer at the Civil Service College teaching government internal auditors and then through his masters’ research in the early 1990s that internal auditors were not meeting expectations of management or the public on fraud. The candidate’s vision for a new type of internal auditor, the ‘frauditor’ developed through ethnography, unstructured interviews and documentary research from his time in central government to the latter part of his public sector career while responsible for the internal audit service for Scotland Yard between 1996 and 2009. The candidate further referenced his concepts and philosophy through commentary and case studies in a book on public sector fraud and corruption published in 2015.
The candidate recognised that he had a unique understanding gained from his experience and career of the relationship between the frauditor, the police and the civil and criminal justice systems in fighting internal and contractor fraud in public sector organisations. The commentary also shows how the candidate used his understanding to develop a new and original fraud risk model and fraud wheel now promulgated across the public sector, as well as developing the concept of the frauditor in his published books.

Date of Award	Oct 2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Portsmouth
Supervisor	Mark Button (Supervisor)