Watchdog attacks Whitehall over fraud

A spending watchdog hit out at the failure of Whitehall departments to join a major anti-fraud initiative which has uncovered £275m of swindles, overpayment and errors in the past two years.
By The Newsroom
Published 16th May 2012, 07:00 BST

Audit Commission chairman Michael O’Higgins called on the head of the civil service Sir Bob Kerslake to force them to participate – claiming there was “no defensible case” for their absence.

His appeal in a letter to Sir Bob expressing serious frustration came as the body released the latest results of the National Fraud Initiative (NFI).

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It continually compares data held by 1,300 public and private-sector organisations from across the UK, including the Commission’s equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Figures for the last two years show pensions (£98m), council tax discount for single occupiers (£50m) and housing benefit (£31m) are the biggest problem areas.

It also rooted out 164 illegal foreign workers and 321 fake council house applications and led to the cancellation of tens of thousands of wrongly-held disabled parking badges and travel passes.

The Commission said it resulted in 731 prosecutions – 636 for housing benefit fraud.

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Mr O’Higgins said the scheme was “well on its way to returning a landmark £1bn to the public purse”.

But he complained that despite championing anti-fraud measures, including data matching, central government was “still not sharing in the benefits” despite regular appeals.