1.       CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS

2.      INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

2.      

2.1     The purpose of this report is to advise the Committee on the work undertaken by the Fraud and Compliance team within the Mid Kent Revenues and Benefits Partnership.

2.2     In 2016 the responsibility for investigating Housing Benefit fraud was moved from the Council’s Housing Benefit service to the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP).

2.3     The Council took the decision to continue with a shared fraud team along with Swale and Tunbridge Wells borough councils, as part of Mid Kent Services, using the team to investigate fraud and error within Council Tax and Business Rates.

2.4     The localisation of Council Tax Support and reliance on Business Rates as an income for the authority changed the financial risk to the Council and preceptors. Whilst there had been some activity to address the risk associated with single person discounts for Council Tax, the service had historically focused its effort on Housing Benefit.

2.5     The transfer of the Housing Benefit fraud function to the DWP created both a risk and an opportunity to the Council. With the administration of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support being directly linked, the Council had in effect been able to ‘police’ the two systems at the same time.

2.6     The change also created an opportunity in releasing a team of experienced specialist staff, with good local knowledge, to both manage the ongoing risk within Council Tax Support and deliver capacity to expand their work into other areas both within the Council Tax and Business Rates systems.

2.7     With the value of discounts and exemptions estimated to be in excess of £17 million and the risk of customer fraud high, agreement was reached with the support of the precepting authorities to fund the current team on the understanding that there would be a suitable return on investment.

2.8     The agreed business case set out a method of sharing the cost and projected savings in line with the value to each partner based on their level of precept.

2.9     The focus in 2020-21 changed to Covid-19. The majority of compliance reviews were halted, and the team were moved to helping with the applications for Business Rates Grants and Test and Trace payments. This continued through 2021-22 and 2022-23 as the team were used to help with Energy Rebate and Household Support Fund payments.

2.10  In 2018-19 penalties were introduced where those residents who do not report changes or who fraudulently make claims for discounts are issued with a penalty of £70.

2.11  In conjunction with the Kent Intelligence Network (KIN) software was partly funded by Kent County Council (KCC) with a view to sharing information with other authorities in Kent to help reduce fraud and error in the county.  

2.12  KCC has partly funded a debtor tracing tool (Retriever) which is used to trace the whereabouts of Council Taxpayers who have left their properties owing amounts of Council Tax. This has been successful with over 426 Council Tax debtors being traced so we can contact them at their current address to recover monies due.

2.13  Table 1 shows a summary of savings generated for Maidstone by the team in 2022-23.

Table 1

3.   AVAILABLE OPTIONS

3.1     This report is presented for information only.

4.        PREFERRED OPTION AND REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

4.1     This report is presented for information only.

5.       RISK

5.1    This report is presented for information only and has no risk management implications.

6.       CONSULTATION RESULTS AND PREVIOUS COMMITTEE FEEDBACK

6.1     None

7.       NEXT STEPS: COMMUNICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECISION

7.1     None

8.        REPORT APPENDICES

None

9.        BACKGROUND PAPERS