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Safeguarding investigators 4.170 Leicester has good written procedures for staff responsible for visiting including guidance on how to deal with potentially violent claimants.
4.172 We conclude that Leicester has sound recruitment processes and, on the whole, has good training provision for fraud investigators. We are pleased to see that written guidance on fraud awareness is currently being produced and that once it is developed it will be available for adoption by other departments of the authority. Leicester has sound processes in place to safeguard the staff of the fraud investigation unit during the course of their duties. There are, however, opportunities for Leicester to build on these good practices by improving the monitoring and analysis of the workload of individual officers. Deterrence 4.173 Deterrence covers activities designed to discourage potential claimants from submitting fraudulent claims and current claimants from failing to notify relevant changes in circumstances affecting entitlement to HB and CTB. It requires strategies and policies, procedures and processes. 4.174 A key element in a secure benefit service delivery is the production of high level security and control within a fraud strategy that identifies the risks, either through fraud or incorrectness (internal or external), to the integrity of the benefit system. The strategy should address prevention, detection and investigation as well as deterrence, with all activities geared to identifying risks. Anti fraud and corruption policy and strategy 4.175 In accordance with good practice, Leicester has a formal anti fraud and corruption policy and strategy document that draws together current practices for dealing with fraud and corruption. The audit sub-committee and chief officers have approved the document. It has been agreed that senior management will disseminate the strategy to all members of staff. Details of the strategy are given in Appendix M. Prosecution strategy 4.176 The audit sub-committee and chief officers have approved and agreed a formal prosecution policy. We know that relatively few authorities have developed such a policy, and it is reproduced at Appendix N as extra information. Agreement of the requirements needed to ensure full implementation of the policy has also been reached with the authority’s legal section. 4.177 The development of a prosecution policy is very much a good practice. The prosecution strategy meets DSS guidelines as outlined in the Audit Commission's report Countering Housing Benefit Fraud. Leicester have not yet decided when they are going to implement the administrative penalty provision in the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997. When the prosecution policy was agreed by members, the need for continuous review was stressed as well as the need to consider how the penalty can be used and integrated into the policy. 4.178 Some of Leicester’s HB cases have been prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Details of the numbers of cases prosecuted and the success rates in comparison with the numbers of cases where WBS have been claimed are given in the tables below.
Source: HBMIS Stats 124
Source HBMIS Stats 124 4.179 In 1995/96 Leicester scored WBS on 537 cases of which 8 cases were prosecuted. In 1996/97 Leicester scored WBS in 760 cases, 223 more than 1995/96, but only referred 6 cases for prosecution. However the percentage of successful prosecutions increased considerably from 0% (none out of 8) in 1995/96 to 67% (4 out of 6) in 1996/97. 4.180 In the financial year 1997/98 Leicester referred 10 cases to the police for prosecution. Five cases were successful, resulting in court action. Four cases were not successful, and one is awaiting further police action. 4.181 Leicester has not analysed the cases for possible reasons why the prosecutions are not successful although the Principal Investigations Officer has, on occasion, liaised with the CPS on those cases where prosecutions have not been pursued. 4.182 Historically there have not been any joint prosecutions with the local BA. However, Leicester is currently working with their local BA Benefit Fraud Investigation Service (BFIS) on a project called LeJIT (Leicester joint investigation team) to develop the procedures for joint prosecutions. Leicester is currently developing a protocol with BFIS for pursuing joint prosecutions using the Theft Act. 4.183 BFI sampling at BFIS showed that it has a well-established set of procedures to deal with prosecutions. Of the sample of 4 prosecution cases that were examined none included HB or CTB in the overpayments put before the court. However, Leicester's records showed that all had HB or CTB in payment during the period of the offences. In 2 of the cases, no HB overpayments had been raised covering the period, and in one case, although an HB overpayment had been raised in Leicester, it had been classified as customer error rather than fraud. If the court had been aware of the true extent of the fraud it might have affected the sentence passed. 4.184 BA send a QB64 form to LAs asking for HB/CTB entitlement details when they are considering prosecution on an IS case. The QB65 form is the same but is used for non-prosecution cases. We find that the failure of the BA to provide QB64 and QB65 forms to Leicester may be undermining the deterrent effect of prosecutions, preventing BFIS from claiming WBS and preventing Leicester from identifying such overpayments and correctly classifying them for subsidy purposes. Corporate information technology security policy 4.185 In April 1997 a council wide IT security policy statement, endorsed by the Chief Executive, was drawn up by the corporate IT strategy unit. The document gives advice on the areas detailed below and was distributed to all employees, members and agents, and employees of other organisations who directly or indirectly support or use the council’s services. The policy statement covers
4.186 We find that this is good practice because it is helping staff be aware of the importance of IT security in the battle against the fraudsters. Hotline 4.187 Since July 1996 Leicester has had a dedicated corporate hotline to encourage employees and the public to report concerns about possible fraudulent activities within Leicester. The cost of installing the hotline was minimal as it is an extension line to the main switchboard. There are also direct dial-in facilities. There are no figures available on the annual running costs. The hotline number is advertised on
4.188 There were no posters advertising the hotline in either the main HB office at Welford House, or in the CSP that the inspection team visited. 4.189 While audit reports give details of the numbers of non HB referrals made, we were told that there is no monitoring or analysis done of the numbers of HB specific calls received and the outcomes of these calls. We feel that an opportunity is being missed to collect data that would help in a risk analysis exercise of the HB caseload. 4.190 Leicester did subscribe to the Fraudwatch hotline service but the subscription was refunded at the authority’s request due to the low number of referrals. Publicity for counter fraud work 4.191 Leicester’s fraud investigation unit do not have a formal counter fraud publicity strategy, but the anti fraud and corruption policy and strategy statement includes the issue of publicity and states:
4.192 We were provided with copies of recent publicity in the local press. The fraud investigation unit also publicise their work by
4.193 There has been no analysis of the various methods of publicity to establish whether or not they are effective and providing value for money. Landlords 4.194 Leicester pays 73% of its rent allowance caseload by direct payment to the landlord. The majority of the private sector landlords are HAs. The liaison arrangements and SLAs with these were covered earlier in the report. 4.195 In May 1997 Leicester applied for Challenge funding to target potentially fraudulent landlords. The rationale behind this was that landlords of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) and boarders were either perpetrating totally false claims for benefit or were continuing HB claims after tenants had left the property. Information held by the private sector housing group and building control section was to be used to provide information on the number of habitable rooms, the numbers of current tenants, and visits made by council officers. Leicester has not been able to give us any management analysis of the success of this initiative other than that provided quarterly to the DSS as a condition for the receipt of Challenge funding. The exercise was started late due to staffing problems and is ongoing in this financial year. Leicester expects to be able to provide a fuller picture of its success at the end of this financial year. 4.196 Leicester does not have systems to monitor known "at risk" addresses or landlords nor do they share any information with their local BFIS. They do not provide information packs or leaflets for landlords informing them of their rights and responsibilities, although the landlord direct agreements advise the landlord of their responsibility to tell Leicester if the claimant’s circumstances change. Landlord forums are held for HAs but not for other private sector landlords. During the initial meetings with Leicester one officer expressed the opinion that the relatively small numbers of private sector landlords do not warrant time and resources being spent on them. While we appreciate this point of view, we find that these forums are a useful tool in educating landlords about their responsibilities as recipients of public money. Leicester has stated that it is looking into using environmental health records to provide information on landlords operating in the Leicester city area. Leicester is also considering the possibility of holding landlord forums following our discussions. 4.197 Leicester makes no use of its power under the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997 to require landlords to give information and we did not find any plans for it to do so. 4.198 We were pleased to note that Leicester had appointed inspectors under the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997, but were surprised that by the date of our inspection no use had been made of these inspector’s powers. Leicester stated that in view of the good relations and professional manner in which the authority conducts its business it has had no need for recourse to the powers and use would only be considered when all other avenues had failed. We felt that this did not answer the point that the sort of information which these powers facilitate collecting is not sought by Leicester’s investigating officers.
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