Agenda item

This report provides Members with an update on the work, outputs, and performance of the Counter Fraud Team for the period 1 August to 30 November 2025.

Discussion:

The Head of Internal Audit & Counter Fraud Shared Service introduced the report. He highlighted that 382 cases had been concluded in the period with a saving of £515,666 to the Council. This brought the total savings of Counter Fraud Activity for the year to 30 November to £665,194. This compared to a total cost of £288,938 of the service to Medway Council for the year.

The Head of Internal Audit and Counter Fraud added that the Committee had previously asked him to liase with procurement regarding the anti-fraud policies of suppliers. It was unlikely that many suppliers to the Council had specific anti-fraud policies, particularly the smaller suppliers, however, the Council’s Counter Fraud and Corruption strategy applies to suppliers so he would liaise with the Head of Category Management to communicate to suppliers their responsibilities under the strategy.

The following issues were discussed:

Fraud Prevention – in response to a question whether there were any measurements of fraud prevention, the Head of Internal Audit and Counter Fraud stated that it was difficult to measure the fraud that was prevented. It would have to rely on services to report any application which was rejected due to possible fraud, which would need to be reviewed by the service which would require significant resources. He stated that the Council had to rely on the controls measures it had put in place and the fraud awareness training and counter fraud activity.

Contractors – in response to a question whether any work had been undertaken with new contractors in terms of anti-fraud policies, cyber security  and due diligence regarding their history, the Head of Internal Audit and Counter Fraud stated that he was not aware of this being tested during the procurement process. The Chief Operating Officer undertook to request a briefing from Category Management to be provided to the Committee following the meeting.

National Fraud Initiative – it was asked what resources were required to complete work related to the National Fraud Initiative and did it represent value for money. The Head of Internal Audit and Counter Fraud explained the Council submitted data in October, then received potential matches the following January. However, the information received represented a snapshot in time, for example the electoral register provided information based on the canvass in August. The potential matches received in January, with the exception of duplicate payments, were subject to an initial check which could be undertaken quickly.  Matches against HMRC data were sample tested as investigation was resource intensive compared to potential returns. The initial checks undertaken by counter fraud took around 8.1 days of staff resources.

With the exception of council tax, the matches were passed to the relevant service to complete initial checks and referred to the Counter Fraud team if concerns were identified. Few potential matches were referred back to the Counter Fraud Team for further investigation. For council tax, once initial checks had taken place review letters could be sent out and accounts corrected. There were relatively few cases proceeding to court because in some areas like the single person council tax discount the monies owed did not meet the public interest, because the cost of prosecution was greater than the monies that could be recovered.

Decision:

a)              The Committee noted the outputs and performance of the Counter Fraud Team for Medway for the period 1 August to 30 November 2025 as detailed at Appendix 1.

b)              The Committee thanked the team for their hard work and success during the year.