Fraud team nets £80,000 in first year

A TEAM set up to tackle fraud in Argyll and Bute has recovered almost £ 80,000 in its first year.

Argyll and Bute Council’s Corporate Fraud Investigation Team (CFIT) formed in October 2015 and is responsible for investigating revenue and benefit fraud, council tax, non- domestic rates and other corporate fraud. It also acts as a single point of contact for ongoing housing benefit fraud investigations.

At the end of its inaugural year of operation in September, the team had detected £175,000 of fraud and successfully recovered almost half of that figure (£79,535) with work ongoing to recover the remainder.

The council has now agreed that the two investigators, who have been temporary until now, should be made permanent on the basis of them being self-financing.

‘If our CFIT had not been in place, a significant amount of fraud would have gone undetected and fraudulent activity would no doubt have carried on,’ Councillor Dick Walsh, leader of the council, said. ‘Our small team is carrying out extremely important work and achieving great results. It has already proved its worth. ’

The team was formed after the transfer of the council’s housing benefit fraud team from the council to the Department for Works and Pensions single fraud investigation team.