Professional services company KPMG has launched a 24-hour whistleblowing phone service to offer employees a confidential way of reporting company fraud.
The Ethics Line is intended to uncover unethical behaviour among staff and managers and to reduce fraud costs.
David Luijerink, director at KPMG Forensic, said: “Colleagues sometimes suspect that fraudulent activity is going on but are reluctant to report or ‘blow the whistle’ due to lack of confidence in internal reporting systems, or fear of victimisation or retribution.
“Employers should do all they can to remove these obstacles, and a whistleblowing hotline is one element of the solution. Statistics suggest that up to 50% of frauds are discovered following an employee blowing the whistle.”
Fraud is estimated to cost the UK economy almost £1bn a year and insider fraud accounted for almost half of all court cases during the first half of 2006.
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