Issue - meetings

To provide the Audit and Standards Committee with assurance over the counter fraud activities of the Council in relation to the work undertaken by the Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit.

The report also provides the Audit and Standards Committee with the updates in relation to the work streams associated with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA) and the Council’s existing authorisation arrangements.

The Head of Service, Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit (CFEU) introduced the first half of the report and highlighted the following key points:

·         Paragraph 2.3 outlined the establishment of the Multi-Agency Approach to Fraud (MAAF) group, which had been set up to raise awareness and to minimise and disrupt fraud across the County.

·         The assurance work on the Test and Trace Grant payments found no evidence of fraud due to robust verification.

·         They would be looking to complete pro-active fraud drives in relation to the Council Tax Reduction Scheme.

·         Paragraph 2.9 detailed the data surrounding the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) matches.

·         An Officer would be attending Ebley Mill in order to work closely with the Housing Team with regard to tenancy fraud.

In response to Councillor Pearcy, the Head of Service CFEU confirmed that the £2,572 amount listed in paragraph 2.5 was the sum of Council Tax due, now that the Council Tax Reduction had been adjusted. The team would be looking to recover as much of that total as possible. She further agreed to try to present the information within the report in a more visual way in order to better capture income, loss avoidance, revenue streams and numbers of referrals.

Councillor Davies questioned what the key methods of fraud identification were. The Head of Service CFEU explained that there were two different types of fraud detection: proactive and reactive. Reactive would work through referrals received and proactive would be to investigate high risk areas to look for fraudulent activity.

In response to further questions from Members, the Head of Service CFEU gave the following answers:

·         There were 1,496 anomalies identified during the NFI matches, further investigation was warranted before they would know which of these would result in changes to Council Tax accounts. The figures for these would be provided at a later Committee.

·         Illegal subletting was a known fraud risk affecting all social housing providers, it was not a specific issue directly related to Stroud.

·         The average cost of tenancy fraud as detailed in paragraph 2.14 had been estimated at £42,000 per case this was inclusive of loss avoidance. The national estimate had recently been changed to include the recovery of legal costs, for example.

The Head of Service CFEU introduced the second half of the report on the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 and Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016 update. She explained that they were in the process of completing a short summary, quick reference guide for Councillors and Staff which would be circulated shortly.

RESOLVED To consider the report and comment as necessary.