Fraud

The Council's position with regard to Fraud

As part of the Transparency agenda each council is required to publish its position with regard to its activities relating to the combating of fraud.

The council has an internal audit team who are tasked with overseeing how the council goes about its business. As part of this role the internal audit team has a duty to ensure that proper procedures are followed. If any evidence of fraud emerged then an investigation would ensue - the likelihood is that the council would instruct an external expert to carry out such an investigation. The council as such does not employ any internal experts in this regard. The amount of expenditure on fraud in any one year would to a large extent be determined by how many instances of fraud were encountered during that year.

Previously the council used to investigate fraudulent housing benefit claims.  However, since 2015 the council has been prevented from undertaking investigations into potentially fraudulent housing benefit claims as responsibility for this passed to the Single Fraud Investigation Service at the DWP.

The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud (Power to Require Information) (England) Regulations 2014 are essentially of relevance to the owners of housing stock/housing associations. As this council does not have any housing stock it is not relevant to us.

This council remains fully committed to protecting the public purse and combating fraud.

David Whelan

Legal Services Manager/Interim Monitoring Officer