National Fraud Initiative

Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council is required by law to protect the public funds it administers.  It may share information provided to it with other bodies (eg. Northern Ireland Audit Office, Cabinet Office, other NFI participants) responsible for auditing or administering public finds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.

The Comptroller and Auditor General is responsible for carrying out data matching exercises under his powers in Articles 4A to 4G of the Audit and Accountability (Northern Ireland) Order 2003.  The Comptroller and Auditor General does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under data protection legislation or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Data matching involves comparing records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body to see how far they match.  This is usually personal information.  Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified.  Where a match is found, it indicates that there is an inconsistency which requires further investigation.  No assumption can be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out.

The Comptroller and Auditor General currently requires us to participate in a data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud.  We are required to provide particular sets of data (payroll and creditor) to the Comptroller and Auditor General for matching.  Details are set out in the Northern Ireland Audit Office’s website, and can be found here.

All information collected and processed will be held in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s retention schedule.  For information of this retention schedule, please click here.

If at any point you believe the information we process on you is incorrect you can request to see this information and even have it corrected or deleted. If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter: 

If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).