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Agenda item

Agenda item

ANNUAL REPORT ON THE NATIONAL FRAUD INITIATIVE

The Deputy Director of Finance submits a report to the Audit and Risk Committee the purpose of which is to provide an update on the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) exercises currently underway.

 

The Committee is recommended to note the contents of the report and make any comments it deems appropriate.

Minutes:

The Deputy Director of Finance submitted a report to the Audit and Risk Committee the purpose of which was to provide an update on the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) exercises currently underway.

 

The Committee was recommended to note the contents of the report and make any comments it deemed appropriate.

 

Stuart Limb, Corporate Investigations Manager, presented the report, and Members noted the following information:

 

·         The Authority took part in the NFI hosted by the Cabinet Office.

·         Every two years in October the authority uploaded vast amounts of data along with other local authorities and public sector organisations throughout the country.

·         In return matches were sent back to the Authority by secure portal in January.

·         The current exercise was for 2020/21. The types of matches varied across different work areas and work streams. Each work area would be responsible for filtering through those matches, with high-risk cases being worked upon first, identifying any irregularities or errors.

·         The statistics are brought to Committee for a timely update.

·         4.3 in the report gave examples of some of the matches the Authority looked through.

·         The authority received 14,752 matches, with 8,336 matches checked, with just 2 errors identified, and 0 frauds that would be investigated, which was a success for the authority, with very low level of errors in the authority.

·         On the overpayments identified, there had been a query placed with the Cabinet Office as it was believed their reporting figures were slightly inaccurate.

·         Officers would start at the end of October to upload data to start the next exercise in January.

 

In response to Members questions, it was noted that:

 

·         Each local authority would have a different level of matches returned based on the size of the authority which varied greatly, and no more or less fraud had been identified in Leicester, though there was a high level of assurance given there were low levels of fraud based on the matches.

·         Members question the number of hours of officer time spent on checking matches and would the time have been better spent identifying underclaimed benefits and payments. Members were informed that the authority Revenues and Customer Support had ongoing work to improve benefit take up and improve welfare support. It was accepted there was a low level of savings for what was a significant piece of work, but the fact was the authority had no choice but to upload data every two years to the Cabinet Office, and most councils would say they spent a disproportionate amount of time on the NFI. The Cabinet Office had consulted recently on increasing the scope of NFI but had decided not to progress this currently.

·         The Council had recently bought the Better Off Leicester tool on the website, the key aim of which was to allow people in the city to type in their circumstances and information to inform them of what benefits they could claim, including discretionary payments the Council could make.

·         Work was now starting in earnest on how the council could help with the cost of living crisis. For example, people were being encouraged to claim free school meals, which as a result would mean schools would receive more money.

 

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.

Supporting documents: