City Council Tackles Fraud
Councillor Phil Bateman recently wrote to the Director of Finance on Wolverhampton City Council stating that he was interested in understanding more about how the City Council were tackling the problems of fraud. He said
"I know that some Council like Greenwich were seen to be leaders in the field, with the Metropolitan Police actually being part of the Councils audit team, and with a special eye skinned for fraud. So I wrote that Benefit fraud was of the areas that were coming under scrutiny across the nation and an innovative partnership between Greenwich Borough Council and the Metropolitan Police has begun to claw back thousands of pounds stolen from the public through various types of benefit fraud.
The Greenwich scheme led to a detective constable-who is an accredited financial advisor- visiting the Town Hall to work in the council's anti fraud team. The move had reduced the time the council spent dealing with complex fraud cases and had helped the police become more familiar with local authority work.
Since the scheme started the Greenwich team had jointly investigated £350,000 worth of fraud and arrested 24 individuals, repossessed council property and ended a number of student exemptions from council tax. Last month Greenwich successfully prosecuted three benefit fraudsters in just one day.
Three fraudsters between them accounted for £64,000 of fraud. I further explained that fraud in the Benefit system was one of the most talked about issues in our communities. At one time or another all local Councillors are told by constituents about 'others' who are committing fraud. It seemed to me that in Greenwich there is a very innovative scheme that is uncovering not just gossip about fraud. But real and actual fraud.... and big sums at that!
I then asked what levels of fraud there is in the Wolverhampton City Councils benefit sections and what success the City Council had, had in flushing it out.
I also asked if the City Council could also explain any innovative arrangements that they had struck up with our local police force here in the West Midlands, and if it in anyway replicates the Greenwich's scheme?
These are issues that after all are important to all local counciltax payers. They are issues that are discussed in the home and down the local pub. I also requested detail of the number of cases that have reached the Courts in Wolverhampton .
The answers were that Wolverhampton City Council had received 749 referrals during the year.
The main types of referral were:-
o Non-declaration of partner (living together)
o Non-declaration of income (other than earnings)
o Non-declaration of earnings
The main sources of the referrals were:-
o Data-matching (HBMS)
o HB teams
o Public (telephone calls and letters)
The City Council investigated 429 cases during the year of which 214 (50%) resulted in a positive result, i.e., fraud or error found or an overpayment was prevented.
Of these the City Council sanctioned 25 cases; four were successful prosecutions, 18 administrative penalties (a 30% surcharge on the overpayment) and three formal cautions. Total value approximately £36,000.We get extra Government subsidy for our fraud work and will receive £41,600 as a result of the sanctions applied last year.
I am convinced that there should be a thorough scrutiny report produced concerning this issue. In that way a detailed review could be undertaken providing the public with even more confidence in the local governmentsystems that are employed here in our Council. I am pleased that we are attracting Government incentive money for cracking fraud cases. The other underlying message has to be to those that are reading this report, and who themselves are fiddling local Government and the state.....it looks like the City treasury are onto you!"
Author: PhilBateman
Article Date: 5th August 2004