Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director Resources (S151 Officer), Clare James.

Presented by the Audit, Risk and Performance Lead, Dawn Allen.

Andrew Robinson, the Revenues Manager, has been invited to the meeting to take questions and comments from members on the SPD/NEC campaign.

The Corporate Director Resources (S151 Officer) submitted a report to the Audit and Standards Committee with the results of the 2022/23 National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching exercise.

The Audit, Risk and Performance Lead introduced the item.

She explained to members that the report before them summarised the results of the 2022/23 National Fraud Initiative (NFI) exercise. The council participated in a full data matching exercise every two years, which matched data between authorities and other audited bodies to prevent and detect fraud. In this instance, 541 matches had been returned with 533 having been fully investigated. Eight matches were still  to be fully concluded. However four errors had been identified totalling £3,670.96 to be recovered by the council.

Additionally, the council participated in an annual council tax single person discount (SPD) matching exercise, this exercise  returned matches where there was a discrepancy in the recorded household occupancy between the electoral register and the Council Tax system. In this exercise, 4,321 matches had been returned. The council’s Revenues and Benefits team usually investigate all these matches. However this year the team were conducting a full review of all SPD claimants and the results of this exercise would be used to update the NFI portal.

At the time of writing the report, 108 matches had been investigated with five errors totalling £2,751.56 identified to be recovered. She explained to members that the financial return for the council was minimal, retaining approximately 11%, with the rest going to other preceptors.

Councillor A Walker queried whether there was a pattern for those matches returned for the SPD exercise.

The Audit, Risk and Performance Lead explained that errors could be caused by the timing of the data matching reports versus the annual update of the electoral register.

Andrew Robinson, Revenues Manager, was invited to the meeting to address any comments or concerns over council tax single person discounts (SPDs). In response to Councillor Walker’s question, he told members that issues relating to the electoral roll were often owing to students who remained on the roll at their home address during term time, and whose parents claimed the SPD.

He explained to members that the Revenues and Benefits team were undertaking a review of all SPD’s  on the council’s database. In total, around 20,000 registered dwellings in the borough received a discount, which amounted to 37%.

Using a new revenue system to analyse the data, they had started with the highest council bands and were in progress with bands D and C. He also explained the process for residents to confirm their discount claim. They intended to make this a rolling review.

Members raised the following questions:

·         Whether there was a potential to get an increased contribution from council tax partners for the work done by officers

·         A date for the potential completion of the review

·         Whether officers completed random checks of claimants

·         Whether claims were matched against the electoral roll and whether follow up questions were asked to claimants

The Revenues Manager and Audit, Risk and Performance Lead responded to questions raised by members. They explained that discussions had been held with other beneficiaries (e.g. LCC) but this hadn’t yielded an agreement. They would usually aim to complete the exercise by end of the year, and start again with fresh data in January 2024. In response to the question on random checks, officers would do follow-ups with residents who had their discounts cancelled due to discrepancies and then re-submitted a claim. The NFI results would also highlight whether a match had been returned in previous data matching exercises.

The Chair thanked the Revenues Manager for his attendance at the meeting.

The report and results of the two data matching exercises were noted by the committee.