Go to homepage

Fraud prevention and detection practices across local and central government in New Zealand

Author: Ian Leitch

Supervisors: Glenys Forsyth Alexa Forbes


20 May 2025

 

Leitch, I. (2025). Fraud prevention and detection practices across local and central government in New Zealand [Master's thesis, Otago Polytechnic]. Research Bank. https://doi.org/10.34074/thes.7273

 

Abstract

This project is a deep dive into current fraud trends and the underlying challenges in modern fraud prevention practices. My analysis shows that while fraud continues to pose major financial and reputational threats, most vulnerabilities stem from outdated systems that simply can't keep up with today's sophisticated fraud techniques. I've identified several key barriers including departmental silos, poorly allocated resources, leadership support and a significant focus on simple / known fraud threats using mostly legacy based systems.

 

Keywords

fraud, waste and abuse, fraud detection, fraud prevention, local and central government, government sector fraud

 

Licence

This thesis is publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International.  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

CC logo