A scam too far

Greater transparency, of course, is being forced upon local authorities on the correct assumption that it leads to greater accountability and so, in the end, to greater efficiency.

Ultimately, this is a drive to save public money – and one that must not be diverted by the immoral acts of the few.

Clearly, in a digital world, access to information is key – and in the wrong hands can be a powerful weapon.

As such, the laudable goal of greater transparency for all public bodies must go hand in hand with greatly increased checks and tougher punitive measures to prevent further cases such as these. It goes without saying that in an age of near-unprecedented public austerity, these are monies councils and other public bodies can ill afford to lose.

Certainly, with local authority budgets under such immense pressure, leaders will be absolutely focused on clamping down on this issue. Nonetheless, the fear is that ever-decreasing staff numbers will mean over-stretched employees perform checks less thoroughly and make more mistakes. Chief executives must ensure this is not the case.

For the fear remains that detected cases only reveal part of the situation – and that the total sums being lost are considerably higher.

Certainly the problem appears to be part of a wider picture. Only yesterday it was revealed that scams and frauds are now costing Britons almost £7bn a year.

Again, it is high-tech processes which are being targeted – be it online shopping, email scams or chip-and-pin fraud. What is clear is that as technology improves at a break-neck speed, it is vital our security measures keep pace.