Business crime affects all businesses, however it is often the smaller firms who are hit the hardest because they cannot absorb the cost. This type of crime has far ranging consequences beyond the direct financial cost of the loss or property damage.
It can put insurance premiums up, damage a business’s ability to meet customers needs, cause reputational damage with both customers and suppliers, negatively impact employees, jeopardise future work and waste valuable time.
Reducing business crime is fundamental to greater business prosperity. Philip Seccombe will place business crime at the heart of an anti-crime strategy to reduce the negative impact of crime against businesses.
Philip Seccombe has launched a charter to tackle business crime:
- Placing business crime at the heart of local Policing Plans with clear business crime objectives.
- Increasing the interaction between the small business community and Warwickshire Police.
- Conduct a routine survey of local businesses on policing matters.
- Encourage more businesses who are victims of crime to report it by taking measures to break-down some of the negative perceptions of doing so.
- Map and publish comparable data on the number of business crimes in each area (reported and detected) to enable small businesses to compare the performance of different forces.
- Invest in cyber investigation capabilities and ensure frontline staff are trained in how to handle incidences of cyber crime and that the response to victims of cyber crime is significantly improved.
- Take advantage of the planned improvements in the capabilities of the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau and Action Fraud, to deliver a change in the identification, investigation and prosecution of fraud.