Issue - meetings

Members considered the Annual Fraud Report for 2018/19. The Strategic Finance and Business Support Manager explained there had been three instances of fraud identified across the year, those being assumed thefts from car parking machines, one email request to transfer funds to a Councillor and one instance with SureStaff. There was also £20,000 worth of housing and council tax fraud identified.

There was discussion regarding the assumed thefts from car parking machines and it was clarified that there had been different amounts of money missing on different days. An internal investigation had included the machines being checked for faults or evidence of tampering, however this had been ruled out. It was confirmed that while there had been no evidence to pursue anything further, there had been changes made following discussions with the contractor in charge of emptying the machines and the discrepancies had since stopped.

It was further clarified that the housing and benefits fraud amounts had been separate cases of similar amounts and action was taken to recover the monies. A Member of Committee commented on there being such a low incidence rate of fraud across the council and the Strategic Finance and Business Support Manager highlighted the number of substantial assurances awarded by the auditors in terms of controls in place.

The Chairman thanked the Strategic Finance and Business Support Manager for a clear report adding the format was much improved on previous years.

RESOLVED to endorse the content of the report and support the ongoing counter fraud work to protect the Authority’s interests.