Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE SHARED ANTI-FRAUD SERVICE (SAFS)

To review the progress and delivery of the Anti-Fraud plan 2023-24.

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the progress by Officers and the Shared Anti-Fraud Service to deliver the 2023-24 Anti-Fraud Plan for the Council.

Audio recording – 39 minute 9 seconds

Nick Jennings, Shared Anti-Fraud Service, presented the ‘SAFS Anti-Fraud Progress report 2023-24’, and highlighted that:

·       Appendix A was an update of the action plan for the current year.

·       A review would be undertaken of the Anti-Fraud policies.

·       Work was ongoing with the HR team to improve and enhance officers E-Learning.

·       All 400 of the matches received into the Fraud Hub in March had now been closed.

·       These matches identified 13 errors, and this led to a £56K saving for NHDC.

·       A high level of matches had been received in Quarter 2 and these had been highlighted to officers.

·       It was noted that the Fraud Hub system identifies a large number of false positives and Officers from SAFS review these to identify potential fraud.

·       There had been some issues with the case management systems that affected the reporting of KPIs 2 and 3, assurances were given regarding KPI2 and the requirement to deal with the most serious fraud allegations within 2 days of receipt.

·       Item 4D of appendix B highlighted the outstanding work on KPI 4 and the delivery of the 5 training events.

·       KPI 5 was completed and would become green.

·       KPI 6 related to the National Fraud Initiative and the Fraud Hub matches, the outcome should shortly become green.

In response to a question from Councillor Tamsin Thomas, Mr Jennings, stated that problems with the new case management systems were detailed on page 236 of the report, and had now been resolved, there had been a slight dip in the number of referral but only whilst the providers fixed the issues.

Councillor Tamsin Thomas proposed, and Councillor Mandi Tandi seconded and, following a vote it was:

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the progress by Officers and the Shared Anti-Fraud Service to deliver the 2023-24 Anti-Fraud Plan for the Council