Peter Tickner Associates Ltd - advice, training & consultancy around corporate governance issues

About the Company

Peter Tickner Associates Limited specialises in training and consultancy around fraud and governance issues, as well as providing a specialist fraud investigation capability. The company can bring in appropriate experts to resolve cases and to support enquiries.

Although entirely independent, Peter Tickner Associates Limited has links with major partner organisations. We are a registered contractor with a number of public sector organisations and a training partner of the Crown Agents.

About the Director

Dr Peter Tickner has a Masters Degree from City University Business School (in Internal Auditing and Management) and a PhD from the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies University of Portsmouth (in counter fraud methodologies for the public sector). Peter is a Fellow and Chartered member of the Institute of Internal Auditors and a member of the Institute of Counter Fraud Specialists. He is an honorary lecturer with the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth.

Peter started his professional auditing and investigating career as an external auditor in the National Health Service in the 1970s, where he audited hospital groups, trusts, family practitioner committees, ambulance services and both the prescription pricing authority and the Dental Estimates Board. After a period training his audit colleagues in England and Wales he undertook the very first UK examinations of the Institute of Internal Auditors, completing his examinations in 1982 along with six other successful students. In 1983 Peter became a lecturer in systems auditing at the Civil Service College, training internal auditors in central government, agencies and local authorities to become professionally qualified internal auditors.

Peter was appointed Head of Internal Audit at Her Majesty's Treasury in February 1988, a post he held for seven and a half years. Peter uncovered a major scandal involving the Civil Service Catering Organisation shortly before its eventual privatisation. While at the Treasury he was also responsible for the investigation that resulted in the head of a government agency being sent to prison for fraud, still the most senior civil servant ever sent to prison as the result of an internal audit investigation.

In 1995 Peter left the Treasury on appointment as the Director of Internal Audit for the Metropolitan Police in London. Here he had to build up a demoralised internal audit unit virtually from scratch, following its decimation after the Deputy Head of Scotland Yard's finances had been caught for a massive £5million fraud against the police which had escaped internal detection for seven years. Peter also very quickly discovered that a number of criminally minded individuals and criminals with convictions had infiltrated as police contractors, including a known money launderer and an armed robber, both of whom had been given works and maintenance contracts in the police. Within a year of his appointment Peter was running more investigations than audits and was given authority to set up a separate investigative branch within the Met's internal audit department to investigate contractor and staff fraud and corruption. This highly successful unit at its peak was conducting between sixty and seventy internal investigations a year and over a ten year period was able to save £24million of tax-payers money.

Having conducted sensitive and significant investigations, including investigations in the use of corporate cards and expenses of senior police officers and the initial investigation into allegations made about the award of contracts to the friend of the then commissioner of Police, Peter took early retirement in 2009 to set up his own investigative and audit business, as well as to write and give training and presentations based on his considerable practical experience.

Since 2016 Peter has been advising the Cabinet Office on the development of the government counter fraud profession. Peter is the former Chair of the Institute of Counter Fraud Specialists and current Chair of the Former Metropolitan Police Civil Staff Association.

Vodcast: Deconstructing Cressey's Fraud Triangle: with Professor Mark Button, July 2020. Watch now

Developing the role of the Frauditor: a forensic internal audit cost effective alternative to the policing of internal and contractor fraud in the public sector, 2019.

More than just a number: Improving the Police response to Fraud, Fraud Intelligence, June/July 2019. Informa.

Pitfalls and perils: whistleblowing in the UK public sector, Fraud Intelligence, June/July 2014. Informa.

Watch Your Back, Fraud Intelligence, April/May 2012, Informa.

White Coat Wiles, Fraud Intelligence, October/November 2011, Informa.

Dealing with the Law, Fraud Intelligence, August/September 2010, Informa.

Peter is currently working with the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth (February 2019 onwards).