Firms in the district are suffering at the hands of small-scale fraudsters because of dwindling police resources.

The Fraud Advisory Panel (FAP), which issued its annual report recently, is calling on the government to beef up local anti-fraud teams.

The report said: "There are currently only 600 police fraud investigators in England and Wales, each of whom can be called away to other duties at any time, compared to 869 in 1995.

"The really big cases are dealt with but too many medium-sized frauds ,worth up to £1 million each, and thousands of smaller ones, are not dealt with at all."

The Panel, which was set up as an independent watchdog four years ago, with the support of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, says small businesses need to be better informed about cheap and effective fraud prevention and detection techniques.

Liesel Annible, who is a counter fraud director at chartered accountants Bentley Jennison and a member of the FAP, said: "Small business owners and managers tend to be more worried about the bank manager, the tax inspector and the auditor than the threat of fraud but they need to be more aware of the risks and how to prevent them."