Corporate Fraud Team Mid-year Update
North Ayrshire Council · 20 November 2025
Back to Audit and Scrutiny Committee — 20 November 2025 and its agenda
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NORTH AYRSHIRE COUNCIL 20 November 2025 Audit and Scrutiny Committee Title: Corporate Fraud Team: Mid-year Update Purpose: To provide the Audit and Scrutiny Committee with an update report on the work of the Corporate Fraud Team between April and September 2025. Recommendation: That the Committee notes the work carried out by the Corporate Fraud Team. 1. Executive Summary 1.1 The Corporate Fraud Team provides the Council with the capacity to investigate fraud both within and against the organisation. 1.2 Committee receives bi-annual updates on the work of the team. This report provides an overview of the activity of the team between April and September 2025. 2. Background Referrals 2.1 Referrals for investigation have been made to the team from a number of different sources, including Revenues and Benefits and Housing, members of the public and other agencies and local authorities. The publicity used by the team, including posters and leaflets, advertising on Council vans and contact information on the Council website, continues to be successful in generating a stream of referrals. 2.2 Investigations have been carried out across a range of areas including employee- related matters as well as Council Tax, Discretionary Housing Payments, Scottish Welfare Fund, Blue Badges and Housing tenancy issues. Although responsibility for investigating Housing Benefit fraud now lies with the DWP Single Fraud Investigation Service (SFIS), issues may be identified by the Corporate Fraud Team which can result in changes being made to benefits in payment. Joint working arrangements are in place with the DWP for cases where there are suspected frauds relating to both DWP benefits and Council Tax Reduction. 2.3 The team investigates all tenancy abandonments which are referred by Housing. While Housing focus on recovering the tenancy, the Corporate Fraud Team can add value by locating the missing tenant, which can often lead to changes to benefits or discounts in payment elsewhere, as well as enabling Housing to recover costs associated with house clearances and cleaning.
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2.4 Employee-related investigations are the subject of a separate report to the appropriate Service and the findings are also reported to the Audit and Scrutiny Committee as each investigation is finalised. Financial outcomes for April to September 2025 2.5 The team received 165 referrals for investigation during the first half of 2025/26 (2024/25: 162 referrals). Analysis of these referrals shows that 119 referrals were received from internal sources (e.g. internal & external colleagues, or a by-product from another case) and 46 from external sources (i.e. members of the public). 2.6 The team investigates 100% of referrals made. During the period, 155 cases were closed (2024/25: 191 cases). These can be categorised as follows: Category Number of Cases Closed with no issues identified 78 Referred to another agency (including SFIS) or Council Service for investigation 30 Closed with results achieved (fraud, error or other recovery/action) 47 TOTAL 155 2.7 Of the 155 referrals received, almost half of these (76) related to tenancy cases, with 69 cases of suspected abandonment, 1 relating to tenancy succession with 6 other housing related cases (including 3 referrals from the Private Sector Housing Team). 2.8 Fraud and error totalling £0.036m were identified and are categorised in the table below: Category Value (£000) Council Tax (including CTR, Single Person Discount and other recoveries) 6.5 Business Rates (including the recovery of arrears) 27 Other (including employee investigations) 2.5 TOTAL 36 Non-financial outcomes for April to September 2025 2.9 In addition to the financial outcomes noted above, other outcomes/benefits were noted as follows: • 23 tenancies were recovered by Housing with some assistance from the Corporate Fraud Team. • 8 blue badges were recovered and a further 4 warning letters were issued for blue badge misuse. 2 blue badge cases were reported to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution. One badge was cancelled which was no longer required. 8 verbal warnings were also issued, where appropriate. • One employee investigation has been undertaken by the Corporate Fraud Team which resulted in a report with actions. This also included conduct / disciplinary issues. • 9 corrections and updates to records have been made to ensure record keeping is up to date.
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International Fraud Awareness Week 2.10 International Fraud Awareness Week (IFAW) takes place from 16 – 22 November 2025. This year awareness will be through the promotion and sharing of fraud related social media posts, from across the UK public sector. National Fraud Initiative (NFI) 2.11 The NFI is a long-established exercise which takes place across the UK every two years and involves the matching of relevant datasets across public bodies to identify possible fraud or error for further investigation. 2.12 The Corporate Fraud Team coordinates the exercise for the Council and the 2024/25 National Exercise is now underway. Data sets for the exercise were submitted to the Cabinet Office in the Autumn of 2024 and matches have been released at various points since December 2024 and throughout early 2025. 2.13 The matches received thus far have been passed out to services for review and this is progressing well. Services have until March 2026 to complete their review of these matches, and the Corporate Fraud Team will continue to monitor progress throughout the exercise. 2.14 Data was uploaded as part of the non-mandatory ReCheck exercise in January of 2025, with matches being released back almost instantly. The review of these matches is in progress. 2.15 Adult Social Care data has been the subject of a legislative reform order and will now be extracted from Council Systems at the end of October 2025 and uploaded to the Cabinet Office, which will generate a further match release. 2.16 Progress updates will be provided at future Audit and Scrutiny Committee meetings, with the final outcomes expected to be reported by Audit Scotland in Summer 2026. 3. Proposals 3.1 It is proposed that the Committee notes the work carried out by the Corporate Fraud Team. 4. Implications/Socio-economic Duty Financial 4.1 None. Human Resources 4.2 None. Legal 4.3 None.
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Equality/Socio-economic 4.4 None. Climate Change and Carbon 4.5 None. Key Priorities 4.6 The work of the Corporate Fraud Team helps to support the efficient delivery of the strategic priorities within the Council Plan 2023-2028. Community Wealth Building 4.7 None. Islands Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA) 4.8 None. United Nations Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 4.9 None. Consumer Duty 4.10 None. 5. Consultation 5.1 No consultation has been required in the preparation of this report. Mark Boyd Head of Service (Finance) For further information please contact Karen Gray, Team Manager (Corporate Fraud), on 01294 324594. Background Papers None.