Issue - meetings

The Counter Fraud Manager introduced the report. He explained how the Shared Anti-Fraud Service (SAFS) was a shared service of which East Herts was a founding member of in 2015, and how it provided a counter fraud function for the council and six others across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

The Counter Fraud Manager advised that the report gave details of the work of both the council and SAFS in 2021/22. He provided Members with some background on SAFS, and explained how it provided a variety of functions for the council to help develop policies and processes to deter fraud.

The Counter Fraud Manager said that SAFS helped to design an anti-fraud plan for the council each year, and directed Members to  Appendix A of the report which provided a copy of the 2021/22 Anti-Fraud Plan for the council, which was approved by the Committee in March 2021.

The Counter Fraud Manager said that as usual SAFS had deployed one Counter Fraud Officer to work exclusively for the council in 2021-2022. He explained how this Officer was managed by SAFS and had access to SAFS intelligence, data analytics and financial investigation expertise at all times.

He said that during 2021-22 SAFS worked closely with East Herts Officers on a review of Anti-Fraud polices for publication, and were also working with the council’s Human Resources Team to update a number of Fraud related e training packages.

The Counter Fraud Manager said that the effects of Covid continued to impact on SAFS work throughout the year, and although the service was well placed in its working practices to be able to minimise this impact there were some areas which were out their control, as detailed at page 21 of the report.

The Committee heard how SAFS resources were deployed, including the support given to the council with the administration of various Covid grant schemes, and the twenty fraud and cyber alerts issued to Council Officers in 2021/22.

The Counter Fraud Manager said that the reporting of fraud had declined in 2021/22 compared to previous years, and that it was thought that staff working from home may have resulted in some loss of ‘visibility’ for SAFS and fraud. In response to this he said that the service was working hard to improve their presence across all council services, and continued to build on the council’s anti-fraud culture, including in respect of housing fraud.

The Counter Fraud Manager gave Members an overview of the results achieved by SAFS for 2021/2022, and was pleased to advise the Committee that all but one of the Key Performance Indicators agreed as part of the Plan for 2021/22 had been achieved or exceeded. He concluded by saying that an update of work to date for the first quarter of the year, including the work on revised policies could be seen at page 29 of the report.

The Chairman referred to page 24 of the report and asked if the number of ‘failed’ referrals by outcome was a typical number. The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 104