171 ANNUAL FRAUD REPORT 2017/18 AND COUNTER FRAUD REPORT PDF 79 KB
To receive Report No. 129/2018 from the Director for
Resources.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Report No. 129/2018 was received from the Director for
Resources, the purpose of which was to provide an overview of any
fraud related activity which has affected the Council during
2017/18; provide assurance regarding the Council’s resilience
against the risk of fraud; and present an updated Fraud Strategy
for comment prior to submission to Council.
During discussion the following
points were noted:
- Benefit related fraud does occur in
Rutland. Claimants do sometimes fail to
update the Council when there is a change in circumstances and
therefore continue to receive benefit for which they were no longer
entitled. This was not always classed
as fraud as there were circumstances where this could be
attributable to genuine oversight, rather than an intention to
claim benefits fraudulently. Nationally
there was a 25% recovery rate for benefit overpayment and Rutland’s recovery figures were
consistent with this national
average;
- The Council approach to Blue Badge misuse was to
rely on spot checks, referrals from members of the public and data
matching. This would be monitored and
should the occurrence of misuse of blue badges increase, the
approach and processes for dealing with this type of fraud would be
reviewed;
- The log of IT Assets was out of date, however
further investigation highlighted that devices had been assigned to
different users but records had not been updated. Most of the devices were now accounted for;
and
- Rutland County Council maintains a Fraud Risk
Register to ensure that areas where the Council may be vulnerable
to fraud are monitored closely.
RESOLVED
1)
The Committee
ENDORSED the content of the Annual Fraud Report;
and
2)
The Committee
REVIEWED the draft Fraud Strategy (Appendix
A of Report No. 129/2018), no amendments
were advised.