£695,000 of tenancy fraud stopped in Wolverhampton

Nine cases of tenancy fraud, worth around £695,000, were stopped by Wolverhampton Council’s counter-fraud team in four months.

Illegal sub-lettings of properties were uncovered along with fraudulent right to buy applications and social housing application fraud.

And fraud where the owner tries to pass on the property to a relative, or fails to hand over the keys, was also detected.

The team tackled the fraud between April and July this year, a report revealed.

A total of 150 instances of suspected fraud were investigated by the team – with council bosses promising to take action to recover all stolen money as part of a "zero-tolerance" policy.

It comes after the council was chosen to pilot a HMRC scheme to crack down on the crime.

The report to the council’s Audit and Risk Committee said: “The counter-fraud team is continuing to develop and lead in raising fraud awareness across the council and in promoting an anti-fraud culture.

“The team carries out investigations into areas of suspected or reported fraudulent activity.

“It also organises a series of council wide pro-active fraud activities, including the targeted testing of areas open to the potential of fraudulent activity.

"The council was selected by the Cabinet Office as one of only 10 local authorities to take part in a pilot National Fraud Initiative (NFI) exercise where HMRC data has been matched to the council’s data for the first time.

“HMRC hold information about household composition, household earnings and property ownership.

"A sample of matches were investigated with the majority relating to tenancy issues.

“The counter-fraud team has provided feedback to the Cabinet Office which has been used to help refine the matches and to ensure the maximum impact is achieved from the exercise.”

A spokesman for Wolverhampton Council said: “The city of Wolverhampton Council operates a zero-tolerance policy on fraud and will not hesitate to take action as appropriate.

"We are pleased to be a key partner in this National Fraud Initiative data matching exercise because, ultimately, fraud against the council is fraud against the hard-working taxpayers of Wolverhampton.”

They added that the figures quoted in the report are notional figures provided by the Cabinet Office who calculate the full cost of the loss of each property to the public.

A total of 66 frontline staff have since been trained to highlight anything suspicious.

A tenancy fraud e-learning course will be distributed to all employees.

An estimated £2.1 billion is lost each year across the country due to fraud.