Cases of alleged fraud reported to council up 15 per cent in a year
Hackney Council is estimated to have saved £1m this year through fraud probes
The number of cases of alleged fraud referred to council investigators went up 15 per cent last year.
Hackney Council had 527 cases referred to it in 2022/23, up from 455 the previous year.
This included 278 allegations of tenancy fraud, 141 about parking fraud and 64 allegations of people wrongly claiming money through the No Recourse to Public Funds scheme.
There were also two allegations of businesses fraudulently obtaining Covid grants, compared with none the previous year.
Investigations into alleged fraud are believed to have saved Hackney Council £1m in the first three months of the year, according to a Town Hall report.
The biggest area was in council tenancy, where council investigators uncovered £694,400 of fraud.
Blue badge and parking fraud accounted for just £6,865 between January and March.
It is estimated that each case of Blue Badge fraud costs £100 in parking charges – equivalent to up to 39 hours parking in Hackney Central. It can also deny people with disabilities designated parking spaces.
Last financial year, the council took 66 Blue Badges off people, down from 97 in 2021/22.
It also dished out 61 warnings about misuse of parking and confiscated another 18 parking permits.
The figures were revealed in a fraud report to the council’s audit committee from head of audit, anti-fraud and risk management Michael Sheffield.
He said that investigations have now “fully resumed” after the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the impact of the cyber attack on the council in October 2020 is still being felt by the fraud team.
The National Crime Agency is investigating the attack, and no-one has been charged. It is believed the people behind the hack are based overseas.
The council’s fraud team said another “significant” issue is the delay in going through the courts with “backlogs that have built up in the criminal justice system since early 2020”.