By David Williams
20 May 2010
The Audit Commission has identified £215m of public money lost to error, fraud, and overpayments across local government in the UK.
The figure, for 2008/09, comes from data generated by the commission’s bi-annual National Fraud Initiative, and is the highest generated by the exercise since its launch in 1996. For 2006/07, the last time it was undertaken, the NFI identified £140m worth of fraud or error.
The NFI works by comparing records on areas such as deaths, expired visas, benefits, students and tax submitted by 1,300 public authorities and private firms handling public records.
Among the techniques used is matching council tax records against the electoral register. Such checks enable the commission to identify those claiming the 25% discount on council tax allowed for single people, despite living with other adults.
This year, which is the first time all councils have been required to submit council tax data, the NFI identified more than £56m fraudulent or wrongful claims for the single person allowance.
The NFI also indentified £84m of pension fraud – including one case worth £30,000 in South Tyneside, in which a pension was collected for some years after the death of its rightful recipient.
NFI work in Scotland generated £20m of the overall total, while the total for Wales was £4.5m.
Audit Commission chair Michael O’Higgins said: ‘We simply can’t afford to ignore losses to the public purse, especially from fraud.
‘Those who steal benefits, pensions, jobs and homes ought to know the NFI is on their trail, and others who fancy trying their luck should realise they will be caught.’
The previous NFI exercise resulted in 269 prosecutions, 256 local authority staff losing their jobs and 16,535 blue disabled parking badges being cancelled.
