Finance Convener welcomes City Council proactive anti-fraud success
Dundee City Council Finance Convener Cllr Fraser Macpherson today (Wednesday 8th March) welcomed news that action by Dundee City Council's finance department helped claw back more than £222,000 in benefit overpayments during a nine-month period last year.
A report to the city council's Finance Committee this coming Monday (13th March) makes clear that housing benefit and council tax benefit counter-fraud activity brought the council income of £222,294 from April to December 2005.
The figure included almost £34,000 of benefit overpayments classed as fraud and £133,000 in claimant errors, with the Council's counter-fraud section dealing with almost 700 referrals.
Councillor Macpherson said: "This should send a clear message to people who think they can cheat the system that we are extremely serious about tackling fraud.
"We work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions to identify and investigate fraud and our efforts are resulting in increased success rates.
"It is certainly the case that the City Council wants to continue to play its part in identifying any fraudulent or erroneous payments that may exist within the public sector and we take all steps to try to increase debt recovery."
The report to committee also highlights the fact that in the latter part of last year over 76% of benefit fraud overpayments had been or were in the process of being recovered.