Benefit Fraud

Why report benefit fraud to the Council?

Benefit fraud is not a victimless crime. Locally it reduces the amount of money available to the Council to spend on the community and contributes to increases in Council Tax. Nationally it diverts money from where it is needed, such as schools and hospitals, which in turn leads to additional tax increases.

Referral of Claims and Assessment Files to the Fraud Team

The referral of cases by the Benefits Section is a vital source of information to the Investigations Team and forms the largest proportion of the workload.

The Investigations team relies heavily on the quality and quantity of these referrals in order that they have the opportunity to effectively investigate allegations and protect the public funds involved in the payment of benefits. A referral to the Team should be made as soon as suspicion is aroused. It is important that no steps are taken to confirm or supplement the information available before referring the case for investigation.

It is important that the subject of a referral is not inadvertently alerted as to the commencement of an investigation as this may hinder the investigation process.

Reported Fraud 

As well as referrals from their own employees the Council also relies on members of the public to pass on information concerning possible fraudulent benefit claims.

To this end a 'Fraud Hotline' has been set up within the Investigation Office.

By ringing a dedicated number, which is (01743) 281441, members of the public can pass on information with regard to people that they think are defrauding the benefits system.

In addition, a simple online form is also available to allow members of the public to report information to us through the council website.

All information is treated in the utmost confidence and as much detail as possible should be given.

Joint Working/Liaison with the Department of Work and Pensions

The Investigations Team works closely with their opposite numbers in the Department of Work and Pensions, as a lot of allegations involve both Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit and Social Security administered benefits, particularly Income Support and Income Based Job Seekers Allowance. The exchange of information between the Offices is very important when carrying out enquiries. A joint exercise can very often have positive results that individual investigations would not.

Types of Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit fraud include:

• Undeclared work
• Undeclared partner, (includes same sex partnerships)
• Undeclared income
• Undeclared capital, (includes property ownership)
• Undeclared non-dependents or tenants
• Undeclared change of address/non-residence
• False claim details
• Cases of landlord fraud

In order to thoroughly investigate allegations of fraud, we need as much information as possible. For example:

• The nature of the fraud
• Name(s) and address(es) of the person(s) concerned
• Details of employment, including the type of work, date commenced, name and address of the employer, hours of work, approximate earnings
• Details of any undeclared partner, including their name, description, period of residency, employment, departure times from the property, relationship to children
• Description of vehicles, including number plate
• Details of any lavish spending, which may be inconsistent with somebody on benefits

Fraudulent Overpayments

A fraudulent overpayment can be classified as such if the Local Authority can establish that, on the balance of probabilities, there has been either:

• a breach of Section 111A or 112 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (false declarations and representations for obtaining benefit;) or
• an identified person knowingly failed to report a relevant change of circumstances, contrary to the requirements of Regulation 75 of the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987, or Regulation 65 of the Council Tax Benefit (General) Regulations 1992, with the intent to obtain or retain benefit for themselves or some other person.