Anti-corruption investigators at Bristol City Council have stopped £3.6million of fraud in the last 12 months, an annual report reveals. The team recovered £529,000 from a variety of attempted cons and also saved taxpayers an estimated £3.1million from housing, right-to-buy and tenancy application scams, mostly through seizing back council homes and giving them to those in genuine need on the waiting list.
Counter-fraud and investigations team audit manager Louise Lee told a council meeting they had cut off £4,578 of payments every week that the local authority would have otherwise paid swindlers, as well as a total of £342,000 in bank and goods payment scams from April last year to March 2022. A report to the audit committee on Monday, June 27, said a tenant had pleaded guilty to illegally subletting their council property and was sentenced to carry out unpaid work, plus £750 costs, and that “proceedings to recover the property are ongoing” following the complex investigation.
It said £30,000 was recovered from bogus applications to the council tax reduction scheme where the team received 42 suspected cases last year compared with 26 in 2020/21. Four of these involved the authority’s own staff, of which two resulted in warnings as the employment was temporary and already ended, while inquiries continue for the other two, the report said.
Read more: Bristol City Council fraud investigators recover £1.1m of taxpayers' money
“Bank mandate fraud/cyber-crime presents a considerable risk,” it said. “One such attempt to fraudulently secure a payment for £320,000 was thwarted by a diligent payments officer.
“Changes in working practices of staff and suppliers during the pandemic created some challenges in validating bank accounts and we liaised with the (finance) team to help them understand the new risks and to take appropriate actions." The 11-strong counter-fraud team issued two warnings for blue badge offences while checks on mortality data led to 203 blue badges and 5,614 concessionary travel passes belonging to dead people being cancelled, which could otherwise have been used fraudulently in their names, saving £117,000 and £135,000 respectively.
Twenty-six supermarket vouchers were prevented from being issued incorrectly, preventing a loss of £2,600, members heard.
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