Agenda item

REPORT OF THE SHARED ANTI-FRAUD SERVICE MANAGER

To consider the proposed Shared Anti-Fraud Service Anti-Fraud Plan for 2018/19.

RESOLVED:

(1)     That the report be noted;

(2)     That the proposed SAFS/NHDC Anti-Fraud Plan 2018/19 be approved; and

(3)     That the Local Government Association (LGA) Councillors’ Workbook on Fraud and Bribery Prevention 2017 be noted, and provided to all Members of the Council.

REASON FOR DECISION:  To enable the Committee to monitor the progress and development of SAFS and to keep Members advised on current fraud matters.

The Shared Anti-Fraud Service (SAFS) Manager presented a report in respect of the proposed SAFS/NHDC Anti-Fraud Plan 2018/19; and a brief update on the 2017/18 Plan.

The SAFS Manager advised that there were two appendices to the report.  Appendix A was the Local Government Association Councillor’s Workbook on Bribery and Fraud Prevention; and Appendix B was the proposed 2018/19 Action Plan.

In respect of the 2017/18 Plan, the SAFS Manager advised that in the first three quarters 149 cases were reported to SAFS for investigation from staff, the public, data matching and other sources.  Of the 75 cases where action had been taken, financial savings of £96,000 and fraud losses of £308,000 had been identified, and a further £54,000 in social security benefit fraud had been identified through joint working with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). In addition, the Council would receive 40% subsidy from the DWP for identifying and seeking to recover housing benefit losses.  At the time of writing the report, this subsidy would be £94,000 for 2017/18 for NHDC.  Paragraph 2.8 of the report summarised one of the successful prosecutions carried out by SAFS.

The SAFS Manager commented that the 2018/19 Plan was similar to the 2017/18 Plan.  Whilst it had an emphasis on Revenues and Benefits fraud, the intention was to expand into other service areas.  SAFS’s fees would be kept at the 2017/18 level, and NHDC would have access to a dedicated full-time Fraud Investigator.  There would be a Fraud Awareness e-learning training module for staff and Members.  The main difference in the Key Performance Indicators for 2018/19 was an increased target of £150,000 (from £100,000) in the identified value of fraud prevented/detected.

In reply to a question regarding the above KPI target, the SAFS Manager stated that the target had been set at this level as a baseline across the various SAFS partner authorities.  The high performance of NHDC in this area during 2017/18 was in the large part due to the skills of an experienced Benefits Assessor who had identified a large number of fraud cases due to close liaison with SAFS and an extensive data matching exercise.

The Committee felt that the Local Government Association (LGA) Councillors’ Workbook on Fraud and Bribery Prevention 2017 document was an easy to follow guide and agreed that it be sent to all Members of the Council.

In relation to the amount of fraud loss that was actually recovered, the SAFS Manager undertook to provide a report on this matter every quarter detailing every fraud loss case to the Head of Revenues, Benefits and IT, and then he would be requested to report to the Head of Finance, Performance and Asset Manager as Section 151 Officer on recovery against each of those individual losses.

RESOLVED:

(1)     That the report be noted;

(2)     That the proposed SAFS/NHDC Anti-Fraud Plan 2018/19 be approved; and

(3)     That the Local Government Association (LGA) Councillors’ Workbook on Fraud and Bribery Prevention 2017 be noted, and provided to all Members of the Council.

REASON FOR DECISION:  To enable the Committee to monitor the progress and development of SAFS and to keep Members advised on current fraud matters.