Issue - meetings

Members considered an overview of fraudulent activity identified and investigated during 2017/18.  They also considered whether appropriate policies and procedures were in place to counter fraudulent activity.

The following points were highlighted:

·         The instances of Council Tax fraud totalled £16,085.15;

·         Schedules of low repayment had been put in place to attempt to claw back council tax overpayments.  Corporate Policy and Resources committee would approve any write-offs;

·         There was a medium risk of an IT/Data breach; there were times when individuals share data when this wouldn’t be suitable;

·         There had been no corporate fraud during 2017/18, and nothing had been pointed out by members of the public, or WLDC staff;

·         The key risks for WLDC were as they had been for a number of years;

·         National figures suggested fraud was a big issue, but WLDC were not finding fraud in significant areas other than benefits and council tax;

·         Around £6 million was paid out per year in benefits; investigations have shown £16k of benefit fraud.  £16k was a low number but work was ongoing to find the fraud.  Most of the work going into this used credit reference agencies, and other methods to secure the benefits system around an area of high risk;

·         Officers should continue to concentrate on staffing and procedures rather than the shorter-term needs of committees;

Members pointed out that a useful addition to the report for future years would be a ‘case-study’ appendix which would give reassurance that certain areas of fraud awareness were being looked at.

RESOLVED to endorse the content of the report and support the ongoing counter-fraud work protecting the Council’s interests.