Issue - meetings

To consider a progress report on the delivery of the 2019/20 Anti-Fraud Plan.

In reply to a series of Members’ questions, the Shared Anti-Fraud Manager commented as follows:

·                the process for estimating the value of fraud loss was a recent addition to the SAFS IT system.  At the end of the 2019/20 Financial Year, it would be possible to compare the estimated figure against the actual outturn figure;

·                the statistics relating to Housing Benefit fraud covered both public and private sector housing;

·                it was expected that any potential procurement/contract management fraud in respect of SBC contracts would be flagged up by officers for onward reporting to SAFS;

·                the 2019/20 target of 12 social homes secured from sub-letting or other unlawful tenancy breaches was based on previous years and was challenging, as this type of fraud was complex.  However, as well as delivering significant savings to the Council, the successful cases provided added social value;

·                the onus would be for Planning Officers to enforce any instances of householders moving their boundary/fence lines onto amenity land.

It was RESOLVED that the work of the Council and the Shared Anti-Fraud Service in delivering the 2019/20 Anti-Fraud Plan be noted.