The Angus Financial Harm Sub-Committee (AFHSC) is a sub-committee of Angus Adult Protection Committee involving officers from Angus Council, Police Scotland, voluntary sector partners and businesses, including financial institutions. The aim of AFHSC is to reduce the number of people being exposed to or suffering financial harm, reducing the amount of money lost to fraud and scams.
Key Activities
An annual plan implemented to prevent financial harm by a process of awareness raising by means of press and TV contacts, distribution of leaflets, schedules monthly broadcasts on local radio, press releases and a Twitter account.
It has led to the formation in Angus of a multi disciplinary Financial Abuse Support Team (FAST) involving police, adult protection social work and health practitioners, & trading standards officers all within existing resources.
Impact and Benefits
AFHSC is innovative in that: It involves many external partners and drives actions for those partners; It increases the options for disposal of cases involving vulnerable adults; It uses technological solutions to protect victims and potential victims; It utilises the enforcement partners to visit victims and potential victims targeted by criminal gangs. The value of one operation (Operation Carpus ) was estimated to be £1 million in savings to vulnerable adults; It empowers key workers in daily contact with vulnerable adults to recognise signs of financial harm; It manages a constant stream of TV, radio, press and social media output to raise awareness of financial harm to the public and raise the profile of financial harm amongst the media; It has utilised existing resources to better effect to reduce harm to more vulnerable people.
Learning
- The huge scale of the problem has become apparent
- The involvement of the financial services industry locally has been very helpful
Further Information
See: @scamfreeangus & aapc.org.uk
To find out more about this case study, please contact:
Mark Hodgkinson
Adult Review and Protection Officer
Angus Council
hodgkinsonm@angus.gcsx.gov.uk
01307 473762