Prevention of fraudulent invoices

The request was successful.

Dear Hull City Council,

I am making a request under the FOI Act.

What steps do you employ to prevent the payment of fraudulent invoices that have been raised in the name of existing suppliers (i.e. where a fraudster raises an invoice in the name of a company that is already a supplier but with the fraudster’s own bank details)?

I await your response within 20 working days.

Yours faithfully,

Helen McNally

Information Governance, Hull City Council

We acknowledge receipt of your request for information which we will
process in accordance with the appropriate legislation below:

Freedom of Information Act
This covers general recorded information that is held by the Council.
Examples: budget information, staff structures, details of contracts etc

From the next working day that the request is received we have 20 working
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We have 40 days from the date of receipt to respond.

Information Governance Team
Town Clerk's Service
Hull City Council
The Guildhall

 

Information Governance, Hull City Council

Dear Ms McNally,

 

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Information Request - 002044/17

 

We acknowledge receipt of your information request received on 7 December
2017 which is being processed according to the Freedom of Information Act
(2000).

 

The legislation allows us 20 working days to respond which takes us to 9
January 2018.  There are some circumstances under which this deadline may
be extended legally but we will inform you as soon as we know if these
apply.

 

 

 

Questions

 

What steps do you employ to prevent the payment of fraudulent invoices
that have been raised in the name of existing suppliers (i.e. where a
fraudster raises an invoice in the name of a company that is already a
supplier but with the fraudster’s own bank details)?

 

 

 

Should you wish to complain about our response in any way this must
initially be done by e-mailing [1][Hull City Council request email] or by
contacting us at The Information Governance Team, The Guildhall, Alfred
Gelder Street, Hull, HU1 2AA.

 

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal review then you
may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the
government body established to enforce the legislation.

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire,

SK9 5AF

 

Web site: [2]https://ico.org.uk

Report a concern: [3]https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Email: [4][email address]

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate)

 

ICO states that any emails you choose to send to them, or that they send
to you, are not secure as email messages can be intercepted.

ICO asks that you include a contact telephone number on any emails you
send to them. 

 

The Council’s Freedom of Information Policy, which includes the charging
policy, is available on request and from the web site
[5]www.hullcc.gov.uk.  Also available is a booklet on ‘Accessing
Information from Hull City Council’ which explains how to request
information and your rights (according to the Data Protection Act 1998 and
The Freedom of Information Act 2000).

 

 

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

 

Information Governance Team

Town Clerk's Service

Hull City Council

Tel: 01482 300300

<img style="width:300px;height:56px" width="100" height="100"
src="http://static.hullcc.gov.uk/images/HULL_...
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Information Governance, Hull City Council

Dear Ms McNally

 

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Information Request - 002044/17

 

With regard to your Freedom of Information request received on 7 December
2017, please find our response below.

 

 

What steps do you employ to prevent the payment of fraudulent invoices
that have been raised in the name of existing suppliers (i.e. where a
fraudster raises an invoice in the name of a company that is already a
supplier but with the fraudster’s own bank details)?

 

 

There are two separate processes in the payment of a trade supplier
invoice within Oracle:

 

1)    Supplier set up – done via the Procurement Team. As per Neil’s
e-mail below, all requests for new supplier details to be created on the
Council’s payments system have to be supported with documentation
originating from the supplier confirming bank details. Any requests for
changes to supplier bank details are checked by staff contacting the
supplier for confirmation that the request and details are genuine.

 

2)    Processing of a trade supplier invoice – done via the Central
Payments Team. All trade supplier invoices have to be matched to an
official order, if no order is quoted the Team establish who has placed
the order and request a confirmation order from the service area – this
acts as a check that the invoice is genuine. If they notice on an invoice
that the bank details differ on the invoice to that in Oracle it would be
referred back to the Procurement Team for checking/confirmation. The
Central Payments Team do not have access to amend supplier bank details.

 

This separation of duties ensures that the risk of the payment of
fraudulent invoices is minimised.

 

 

 

We hope that you will be satisfied with our response and should you
require any further information then please do not hesitate to contact
us. 

 

 

Should you wish to complain about our response in any way this must
initially be done by e-mailing [1][Hull City Council request email] or by
contacting us at The Information Governance Team, The Guildhall, Alfred
Gelder Street, Hull, HU1 2AA.

 

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal review then you
may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the
government body established to enforce the legislation.

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire,

SK9 5AF

 

Web site: [2]https://ico.org.uk

Report a concern: [3]https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Email: [4][email address]

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate)

 

ICO states that any emails you choose to send to them, or that they send
to you, are not secure as email messages can be intercepted.

ICO asks that you include a contact telephone number on any emails you
send to them. 

 

The Council’s Freedom of Information Policy, which includes the charging
policy, is available on request and from the web site
[5]www.hullcc.gov.uk.  Also available is a booklet on ‘Accessing
Information from Hull City Council’ which explains how to request
information and your rights (according to the Data Protection Act 1998 and
The Freedom of Information Act 2000).

 

 

This information may be subject to copyright. The Freedom of Information
Act does not give you an automatic right to re-use this information in a
way that would infringe copyright, for example, by publishing it or
distributing copies.  You are free to use it for your own purposes
including any non-commercial research or private study or for the purposes
of news reporting.

If you wish to re-use this information and this was not specified in your
initial application please contact us to discuss conditions for re-use. In
most cases we will permit use and re-use in accordance with The Open
Government Licence which can be found at
[6]www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

 

Information Governance Team

Town Clerk's Service

Hull City Council

Tel: 01482 300300

<img style="width:300px;height:56px" width="100" height="100"
src="http://static.hullcc.gov.uk/images/HULL_...
border=0/>

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Dear Information Governance Team,

Thank you very much for your detailed response.

Yours sincerely,

Helen McNally