Agenda item

The Head of Internal Audit will submit a report providing an overview of the work of the Corporate Anti-Fraud Team for the period 1^st October, 2015 to 31^st March, 2016.

The Head of Internal Audit submitted a report providing an overview of the work of the Corporate Anti-Fraud Team for the period 1^st October, 2015 to 31^st March, 2016.

The report provided details of the following activities in which the Team were currently involved:

·         Council Tax Support investigations

·         Council Tax fraudulent liability claims – including the review of Single Person Discount

·         Right to Buy investigations

·         Corporate Investigations

·         National Fraud Initiative involvement

·         Tenancy Fraud.

The positive impact the Team was having in tackling fraud was very much welcomed and the Team’s work was now beginning to have significant results as initiatives were rolled out.  It was reported that since April 2015 a total of around £500,000 had been saved/recovered as a result of the work of Anti-Fraud initiatives and it was felt that this very much justified the Team’s establishment.

In the ensuing discussion, particular reference was made to the following:

·         The number of cases, workload and agencies in which the Team was involved

·         The number of referrals received particularly in relation to Council Tax Support was highlighted and it was noted that sometimes intelligence received was not sufficient to trigger an investigation

·         A significant amount of work had been undertaken and there had been considerable success in relation to the pro-active data matching exercise to identify council tax payers who were erroneously or fraudulently claiming a single person discount.  This had commenced in October 2015 and detailed statistics on the work of the Team in this area was provided.  To date, 70 tax payers had indicated that they had declared date of change of circumstance was incorrect.  This had resulted in the removal of discounts from earlier dates and an increase of £20,699 Council Tax being raised across the identified Council Tax accounts.  A subsequent second verification exercise had established that a number of taxpayers had contacted the Council directly to cancel their Single Person discounts and that other accounts no longer required follow up due to financial records held by third party credit reference agency being updated.  1,177 accounts had been cancelled to date and an additional £321,947 Council Tax income had been raised.  It was noted that the review was not yet complete and an update would be included within the Annual Report to be submitted in June

·         It was noted that, in relation to Right to Buy, following liaison with the RTB Team and the Council’s Enforcement Unit, one sale had been stopped prior to a valuation being carried out and the second resulted in a saving of £27,360 (the value of the discount which would have applied)

·         The Anti-Fraud Team had also assisted in identifying two properties that could be recovered due to non-occupancy

·         It was noted that as the success of the Team grew in preventing Fraud, the ‘savings’ accrued would naturally diminish as the amount of fraud reduced

·         In response to specific questioning, the ways in which investigations were undertaken and liaison between departments was outlined.  It was noted that one member of staff had been dismissed for gross misconduct as a result of Single Person Discount Fraud.  Any irregularities identified would automatically trigger an investigation

·         Appropriate systems and processes were now being put in place to tackle fraud and it was noted that in relation to Single Person Discount in particular, fraud identified was not attributable to the failure of systems and processes but to individuals’ dishonesty

·         It was noted that through the National Fraud initiative and protocols in place with Electoral Registration, the ‘rising 18’s’ were identified within households and this assisted in identifying Single Person Discount anomalies.  In response to further questioning, however, the Director of Legal and Governance commented on the legal limitations on the use of the Electoral Register which could prevent the Authority using such a resource to assist in the identification of other types of fraud.

RESOLVED

(i)      that the progress made in the development of effective arrangements and measures to minimise the risk of fraud and corruption be noted; and;

(ii)     that the Committee receive six monthly progress reports on internal and external fraud investigated by the Corporate Anti-Fraud Team.