37. In the most recent incident of fraud or corruption within your organisation that you are aware of, how was it detected?

Observation:

Respondents could select more than one answer for this question.

Of the 22.5% of respondents who were aware of at least one incident of fraud in their organisation, most incidents were detected by internal controls (45%) and as a result of an internal tip-off (25%).  Of all the methods of fraud detection, external audit was the least likely method to detect fraud.

Note:

To help simplify the detailed tables, which depict the responses by sector, the methods of fraud detection are in five groups:

1. Whistleblowing or tip-off, encapsulating:

• Through the organisation whistleblowing system
• Internal tip-off (not whistleblower)
• External tip-off (not whistleblower)

2. Changes of duties or personnel

3. By internal control systems (e.g. exceeding financial delegation)

4. Internal/external audit or fraud detection systems, encapsulating:

• Internal audit
• External audit
• Through a fraud detection system (data-mining)

5. By accident

Some other examples provided by respondents:

“Utilisation of security camera”

“Call back to customer”

“Reviewing of staff email accounts following tip off”

“Manager noticed document damage in expense claim, checked previous claims and discovered same damage, so investigated further”

“An external inquiry prompted the employee's manager to look at the file and the altered document was found, together with the new colour photocopy.”