Who are the people behind the presentations?
This year’s Annual Fraud Conference is being held at Oxford’s Town Hall. During the event there will be live presentations, breakout sessions & case studies brought to you by industry leading experts.
But who are they?
Andrew Lane
Cornerstone Barristers
Andy was called to the Bar in 1999 and practises primarily in the housing, local authority and public law fields. He acts primarily for local authorities and private registered providers of social housing and has extensive advocacy experience in courts and tribunals up to the Supreme Court.
Before coming to the Bar Andy spent over 10 years working in the statutory and voluntary sector in the field of housing, debt and benefits advice. He was on Oxford City Council as a councillor between 1991-1995, and held a number of portfolios during that time, including Chair of the Housing Committee.
The legal directories have consistently recognised Andy as one of the leading practitioners at the Bar in the Social Housing field by placing him in the top-ranking category:
'Fiercely intelligent, a formidable opponent, yet friendly, down to earth and approachable.' (Legal 500, 2021)
'His knowledge is exceptional, and his advocacy and written services have been consistently at a very high standard.' (Chambers and Partners, 2021)
He is the author of Cornerstone on Social Housing Fraud, now in its second edition, and has set up a blog to encourage the free flow of information on this topic.
His recent appearances in the higher courts include Salix Homes v Mantato [2019] 1 WLR 3609, Powell v Dacorum Borough Council [2019] HLR 21, Adam v City of Westminster [2019] HLR 15, Gullu v HillingdonLBC/Ward v Hillingdon LBC [2019] HLR 30, Hertfordshire County Council v Davies [2020] EWHC 838 (QB), R (Z and anor) v Hackney LBC and anor [2020] 1 WLR 4327 and Ohio Stanley v Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council [2021] HLR 12.
An avid social media obsessive and Manchester United fan, you can find Andy on LinkedIn and Twitter (@CSHousing Fraud and @AndrewLane1962).
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Georgina Laverack
Competition & Markets Authority
Georgina Laverack is an Assistant Director in the CMA Cartels team investigating cartels and promoting compliance with anti-cartel laws. Georgina is a competition lawyer who worked in private practice in London and Brussels before joining the OFT (CMA’s predecessor). Georgina had a number of different roles at OFT/CMA including leading a team to draft a series of guidance on the application of the Competition Act 1998 (CA98) for business and representing the CMA in discussions on cartel legislation and policy within the European Competition Network, International Competition Network and OECD.
Alan Bryce
Alan is currently a non executive member of the Tenancy Fraud Forum, former Head of Counter Fraud and Cybercrime at the Charity Commission and former Head of Counter Fraud at the Audit Commission. He is the principal author of the award winning series of publications on local government fraud, Protecting the Public Purse, He has researched and published reports on the extent of both charity fraud and charity cybercrime, the largest ever charity specific research on either issue ever undertaken in the UK. He also helped establish the award winning International Charity Fraud Awareness Week. Alan's study On the nature and extent of tenancy fraud was the first such academic research undertaken in the UK and provided the evidential base for the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act.
Sean McNabb
Competition & Markets Authority
Sean McNabb is currently a Director in the Cartels team at the CMA. His background is as a fraud investigator and he has been involved in cartel enforcement for over 20 years, having previously worked at the Office of Fair Trading. He has worked on a number of successful criminal and civil cartel investigations involving a diverse range of industries ranging from airlines, estate agents, furniture products and various sectors of the construction industry, including leading the largest ever cartel investigation in the UK which resulted in fines totalling £63.6million being issued to 103 construction firms found to have engaged in bid rigging with competitors on building contracts, including many for the public sector. He is currently Project Director for an ongoing investigation into alleged anti-competitive activity in the construction sector.
Simon Rosser
Head of Revenues, Benefits & Fraud
Reigate & Banstead Borough Council
Simon has worked at Reigate & Banstead Borough Council for over 25 years, initially working in Benefits and fraud investigations. Since 2012 Simon has run the Revenues, Benefits & Fraud service, and in 2015 embarked in a new direction by expanding the service to support other local authorities and housing providers under the Council’s commercial agenda. The service now has a portfolio of clients, providing help with debt recovery, business rates, fraud investigations and property inspections.
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Mark Johnson
TRMG
Mark Johnson is a former military officer, drug enforcement agent, and global head of network fraud and security. Mark runs The Risk Management Group (TRMG), who provide fraud control services to Ericcson, Alcatel, and Nortel.
Mark also acts as a trainer on open source intelligence (OSINT) for UK police forces and acts as an OSINT and cybercrime consultant to the Home Office.
Mike Neumann
ITS Training
Many years ago, and more by luck than judgement, Mike trained as an investigator and ended up looking at organised fraud, a role that gave him opportunities to work with many government departments and police forces throughout the UK. After a spell on surveillance, he became a HOLMES system manager. Deciding investigation was the best job in the world, he decided to stay until he discovered training, which is often just as much fun and (normally) far less dangerous.
Now that ITS (where Mike is Managing Director, does the psychology training and some of the investigation training) is over eighteen (and officially grown up), he feels compelled to find new things to do. That includes the launch of a new eTraining website, making training work using Zoom, and NIOG – the National Investigation Officers’ Group. The biggest thing right now is the Socially Distanced Investigations training that ITS is delivering across the country (well, virtually…)
Raj Vine
Riverside Housing Association
Raj has worked at The Riverside Group for over 12 years. With expert knowledge of the social housing sector, Raj leads the Counter Fraud service for Riverside covering over 56,000 properties and is currently on Riverside’s in-house talent programme for future leaders. Raj has in-depth experience and recognises the vital importance of evidence gathering and multi-agency working to obtain a better understanding of a case to ensure a positive outcome. Raj passionately believes in ensuring social housing is protected, not misused and properties go to people in genuine housing need.
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