Report on activities
Summary
Prepare summary reports on activities for clients, managers or responsible staff.
Why this countermeasure matters
A lack of reporting on activities may result in:
- less transparency over actions and outcomes
- poor management of performance, decision-making and risk
- less action and accountability to prevent, detect and respond to fraud and corruption
- fraud or corrupt activity going unnoticed or unchallenged.
How to put this countermeasure in place
Some ways to implement this countermeasure include preparing reports for managers and executives on:
- program or administrative budgets and expenses
- program claims, payments and other key performance indicators
- staff attendance and allowances, such as overtime payments
- project or contact performance
- procurement and vendor payments.
How to measure this countermeasure's effectiveness
Measure the effectiveness of this countermeasure by using the following methods:
- Confirm that reports are actually produced and used.
- Review a sample of reports to determine if they are clear, relevant and would help someone detect fraud.
- Review data related to reports to see how often are they are reviewed.
- Confirm that reports are sent to or available to appropriate persons such as:
- customers who can view reports on their online account
- line managers who can receive an email
- executives who review reports during committee meetings.
- Confirm that reports and data cannot be manipulated.
Related countermeasures
This type of countermeasure is supported by:
Establish governance, accountability and oversight of processes by using delegations and requiring committees and project boards to oversee critical decisions and risk. Good governance, accountability and oversight increases transparency and reduces the opportunity for fraud.
Make sure a manager, independent person or expert oversees actions and decisions. Involving multiple people in actions and decisions increases transparency and reduces the opportunity for fraud.
Collaborate with strategic partners such as other government entities, committees, working groups and taskforces. This allows you to share capability, information and intelligence and to prevent and disrupt fraud.
Make sure requests or claims use a specific form, process or system for consistency.
Automatically match data with another internal or external source to obtain or verify relevant details or supporting evidence. This countermeasure is supported by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's Guidelines on data matching in Australian government administration.
Put protections in place to prevent data from being manipulated or misused.
Collect and analyse data to improve processes and controls, increase payment accuracy and find and prevent non-compliance, fraud and corruption.
Train and support staff to identify red flags to detect fraud, know what to do if they suspect fraud and know how to report it. Fraudsters can take advantage if staff and contractors are not aware of what constitutes fraud and corruption.
Put in place processes for staff or external parties to lodge tip-offs or Public Interest Disclosures.
Establish exception reports to identify activities that are different from the standard, normal, or expected process and should be further investigated.
Report on incidents or breaches to help identify if further investigation is required. Clients, public officials or contractors can take advantage of a lack of reporting and transparency to commit fraud, act corruptly and avoid exposure.
Internal or external audits or reviews evaluate the process, purpose and outcome of activities. Clients, public officials or contractors can take advantage of weaknesses in government programs and systems to commit fraud, act corruptly, and avoid exposure.
Audit logging is system-generated audit trails of staff, client or third-party interactions that help with fraud investigations.
Related Fraudster Personas
This countermeasure helps prevent, detect or respond to the following Fraudster Personas:
