Agenda item

The Corporate Investigation Manager submits a report to inform the Committee on the work carried out by the Corporate Investigations Team during 2022/23 and the 2023/24 half year April 2023 to September 2023.

The Committee is recommended to receive and comment on the report and make any recommendations it sees fit to the Executive and/or the Director of Finance. .

The Corporate Investigation Manager submitted a report to inform the Committee of the work carried out by the Corporate Investigations Team during 2022/23 and the 2023/24 half year April 2023 to September 2023.

Stuart Limb, Corporate Investigations Manager presented the report and the following points were highlighted:

·       All Right-To-Buy applications were checked and sources of funding were investigated to ensure the purchase was legit.

·       The Corporate Investigations Team worked alongside school admissions teams to validate school applications. Work was also conducted alongside the Housing Department to ensure properties were not being sublet.

·       Further to the benefits gained from membership with the National Fraud Network, it was noted that if a fraud attempt occurred at a local authority, the risk would be shared across the network to prevent it from occurring in another authority.

Members of the Committee discussed the report and the following points were raised:

·       If a property is determined to be occupied, the Revenue Team would review whether the property falls under the New Homes Bonus Scheme.

·       Members enquired about any campaigns regarding the 25% Single Persons Discount as well as fraudulent claims involving single person properties. It was noted that a third-party organisation was employed to perform a managed service review of the single person discount, which took into account credit references, the electoral register and agency data.

·       Members raised concern about non-students living in student accommodation and avoiding council tax. It was noted that the Revenue Section worked alongside Universities to ensure student lists matched property residents in student accommodation.

·       Members raised concern about the potential passing on of tenancies of council properties. It was noted that cooperation with the Housing Department was ongoing to check any areas of concern, such as through data matching or reviewing active occupancies. It was noted that while there was a risk that properties were being sublet due to the number of properties under management, the risk was being actively managed and promotion for members of the public to report known sublets would be undertaken.

·       It was further noted that Right-to-Return, caused further issues regarding what actions could be taken if the resident declared their intention to return to the property. The Director of Finance noted that an officer from the Housing Department and Homelessness Team would be brought back to provide an update regarding this item at a future meeting.

·       Members enquired about any costs or savings accrued from work alongside the school admissions section. It was noted that the Council had a duty to ensure that the right children received the right places at the right schools. It was noted that the financial figure used the pupil grant, which was noted to be approximately £18k, as a guide for assessing costs or savings associated with student places. It was emphasised that applications for more highly sought after schools that were at higher risk were rigorously assessed. It was noted that it was difficult to put a figure on a notion of saving for school places but a review could be undertaken to analyse a better benchmarking system. It was noted that the next report on the item would include calculations on how the notional figure was reached regarding costs or savings for school admissions and the number of instances identified.

·       Members enquired about the reasoning behind management requests for access to records of employee’s system access. It was noted that there was a variety of reasons required for requests for access, ranging from suspected irregularity or misuse of council property or time or temporary access during staff sickness of absence.

The Chair thanked officers for the report.

AGREED:

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That officers from the Housing Department and Homelessness team be invited to a future meeting to provide an update on subletting concerns.