Agenda item

The Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service (SAFS) provided a summary of the work undertaken by the SAFS to protect the Council against fraud and the Council’s 2019/20 Anti-Fraud Plan. Recent reports had been provided by Council Officers and were being used by SAFS to ensure that the Council was aware of its fraud risks and finding ways to mitigate or manage these effectively where possible.

The Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service referenced specific issues such as the overall scale of fraud across England; the number of reported incidents of fraud in East Herts; penalties to deter fraud; and pro-active prevention activities. He also noted that while EHC had fraud policies in place, they were in need of review and would be updated by Q4 to bring them in line with current practice; specific details were included in Appendix B to the report.

In response to Councillor T Stowe on why progress against the goal of creating a fraud risk culture was shown as Red ‘due to lack of policies’, the Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service said this related to some policies being outdated, and was shown as red as a reminder to him to work with officers to update all policies. 

With reference to possible delays in joining the Hertfordshire FraudHub in 2020, the Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service said there had been some delays because of a number of Council staff changes. He wanted to ensure that the process was followed correctly and was working with the Interim Head of Strategic Finance and Property to get EHC fully on board by Q3.

In response to Councillor A Curtis on how PAGO monitored the details of the delivery of the Fraud Plan, the Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service said it was not within PAGO’s remit to monitor the finer details of the plan’s delivery. SAFS worked with officers to ensure that sufficient policies were in place, which should be shared with staff. A new “Fighting Fraud Strategy” was due to be published, but care would be taken that this was relevant and adequate for EHC.

The Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service communication to staff on fraud was vital and training would be provided to managers to ensure that staff were aware of relevant policies. This could be monitored through the e-learning module and linking the e-learning to relevant policies was also very important.

The Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service said the benefits of being part of the Collective Local Authority Bid to join the Counter-Fraud Profession were firstly that a national standard would be set which would have to be maintained, which would in turn lead to a much improved service to EHC and secondly, all local authorities would be part of the Bid. The cost of being part of this would be borne by Central Government for the first three years, after which there would be individual memberships.

The Scrutiny Officer said any changes to Human Resource policies would initially be submitted to the Local Joint Panel and then to the HR committee for decision.  She encouraged Members to review reports on the Human Resources agenda.

The Chairman drew Members’ attention to the fact that the fees for EHC to be part of SAFS would increase to £81,600 + VAT in 2019/2020.

The Chairman said all the progress items referred to under the Anti-Fraud Culture in the Council were shown as either red or amber, which raised the question if there was enough awareness of the importance of a fraud culture and if it needed a higher profile in the Council. The Head of the Shared Anti-Fraud Service said that officers in the Council did not tolerate any fraud, but there needed to be more transparency in the Council’s policies to better evidence this. A consistent response to fraud was needed; officers had to be confident and able to report fraud and this had to evidenced by way of policies.  Although there had been a number of changes at senior management level, there was enough confidence that the Anti-Fraud Culture would be addressed by way of implementing adequate policies. There was a general article on fraud prevention on the Council’s website, which was a positive development.

It was moved by Councillor A Curtis and seconded by Councillor L Corpe that the committee notes the report. After being put to the meeting and a vote taken, the motion was declared CARRIED.

RESOLVED - that the Committee notes the report, which detailed the work of the Council and the Shared Anti-Fraud Service in delivering the 2019/20 Anti-Fraud Plan.