Audio recording
– 17:14
Nick Jennings, Shared Anti-Fraud Service,
presented the SAFS Annual Report 2021/22 and highlighted points
including:
- This report is to reflect on the
previous year activity looking at anti-fraud arrangements at the
Council and working with SAFS.
- This report is based on the delivery
of the 21/22 anti-fraud plan which was approved by this Committee
in March 2021.
- The report looks at how we structure
the plan in line with current best practice, especially the
guidance provided by the Fighting Fraud and Corruption Locally
Strategy that was developed in partnership with the LGA and a
number of other organisations. This is focused on how local
authorities can deal with the risk and threat of fraud
- We look at SAFS performance and KPIs
and how we have done against KPIs agreed with officers and the
anti-fraud activity for the current year
- We have included transparency code
data. This is data the authority is required to provide around its
anti-fraud arrangements and the outcome of that activity and how
much money has been spent on it
- This report is based on
recommendations from the Fighting Fraud and Corruption Locally
Strategy, particularly the five pillars: protect, govern,
acknowledge, prevent, and pursue. It was also based on the Councils
policies on anti-fraud and corruption and very closely reflects the
guidance on best practice for local authorities including the use
of checklists and identifying responsibility for particular
activity across the authority by officers
- We deployed one officer to the
Council in 21/22. They were supported by the SAFS support team
including data analysts, financial investigators, and intelligence
officer.
- The officer is the first point of
contact for any officers working with the authority on undertaking
any initial investigations that arise
- The Council has a place on its
website for people to report fraud, this is linked into the SAFS
website. This allows us to collate all the information and can
report back to the Council on the volume type of fraud that is seen
to be affecting the North Herts Council
- The e-learning that is provided via
the Councils e-learning platform is currently being updated and a
new version will be released soon. The version officers are using
at presently is still valid and covers fraud, corruption, bribery
and money laundering. We provide additional training for officers
to support the e-learning training
- The ongoing impact in 21/22 from
covid-19 has changed how we deliver our service slightly,
particularly the use of sanctions and financial penalties. We are
looking at prevention work at the front end and the impact on some
of the investigations of conducting where we work with partners
such as the Department for Work and Pensions
- We are continuing to assist officers
with grants and provide additional support around data cleansing
and we work closely with the National Anti-Fraud Network,
Cifas, and the Cabinet Office to ensure
there is pre and post payment checks against all the grants that
the Council paid under the various schemes the government
introduced during the pandemic
- We provided more frequent and
enhanced alerts. This network provides the authority with a huge
access to organisations and information about new and emerging
fraud threats
- We detail the number of allegations
we have received via the authority and how they are broken down by
service areas and who is reporting these to the authorities. Not
every allegation is correct or needs to be investigated fully, so
how we have dealt with these individual allegations is broken down
in the report
- The outcomes of some of the cases
and investigations and financial savings and prevention work is
detailed and the value of this has been identified for the
authority.
- There is also detail of outstanding
work that is being carried forward into this year
- The repot shows the volume of referrals and how this
reflects back on previous years. This can vary year to year as it
follows trends and we saw a spike in 2020.
- We have broken down the work
officers done around the National Anti-Fraud Initiative. Worked
with officers from the authority to ensure the matches were
resolved in accordance with the requirements for the Council to
comply with the National Fraud Initiative. The outcome of the
financial value in savings to the Council is tiny but it is work
that needs to be undertaken every two years
- All the KPIs for last year were met
or exceeded with the exception of one. We didn’t manage to
achieve 10 training events that were promised in the KPIs, however
in the North Herts plan we offered 5 training events and we
provided this but didn’t amend the KPIs.
- The work we are currently
undertaking shows we have a significant number of cases being
investigated at the moment, but the fraud losses identified are not
significant.
- We work with settle Housing. This is
important work for the Council as the Council doesn’t have
its own housing stock and settle Housing manages the majority of
the social housing across the district.
- Working with settle Housing allows
us to undertake fraud investigations on their behalf where there
are suspicions of tenancy fraud. The advantage for the authority is
we are able to bring properties back into stock and the Council is
able to allocate people from its housing waiting list.
- This relationship with settle
Housing only started in the fourth quarter of last year, and we
have recovered three properties so far
The following Members asked questions:
- Councillor Clare Billing
- Councillor Terry Hone
In response to these questions, Nick Jennings
advised:
- The training that SAFS provide is
part of the mandatory training for all officers.
- We have many Councils as part of the
partnership and the types of fraud we see across them is similar.
It is often linked to housing, housing applications, benefits and
council tax. During the pandemic we saw more direct fraud attempts,
both opportunists and more organised crime. We worked with officers
during the pandemic to ensure there were measures, processes and
checks in place to reduce the level of fraud around the grants that
were issued. Some got through, but only small numbers compared to
other authorities. The fraud is comparable in types and numbers
between other Councils.
Ian Couper also responded to questions:
·
I will have to check how many people have completed it but think it
is and check that it is mandatory.
Ian Couper suggested providing more training
in advance of the FAR meetings. Nick would come before the meeting
in December to offer some training to Members on fraud.
Councillor Terry Tyler agreed this would be
helpful and there was a general consensus that Members agreed to
this training offer.
Councillor Terry Hone proposed and Councillor
Clare Billing seconded and, following a vote it was:
RESOLVED: That the
Committee:
(1)
Note the Councils work to combat fraud in 2021/22
(2)
Note the performance of SAFS in meeting its KPIs in 2021/22
(3)
Note the progress with delivering the Anti-Fraud Plan for
2022/23