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1 Veritau undertakes counter fraud work on behalf of City of York Council. This document summarises expected counter fraud activity for 2024/25.
2 A large part of the work of the team involves undertaking reactive investigations. The level of investigations is driven by referrals received from officers and the public about suspected fraud. Other work will be undertaken in accordance with priorities determined by the Counter Fraud Risk Assessment and Counter Fraud Strategy Action Plan (presented to the committee alongside this work programme). A high-level summary of areas of counter fraud work are shown in table 1 below.
Table 1: Counter fraud work programme
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Programme area |
Purpose |
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Monitoring changes to regulations and guidance, reviewing counter fraud risks, and support to the council with maintenance of the counter fraud framework. Updates on significant fraud trends and counter fraud activities will be provided to the Audit and Governance Committee during the year. |
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This includes: • raising awareness of counter fraud issues and procedures for reporting suspected fraud - for example through training and provision of updates on fraud related issues • targeted proactive counter fraud work - for example through local and regional data matching exercises • support and advice on cases which may be appropriate for investigation and advice on appropriate measures to deter and prevent fraud. |
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Investigation of suspected fraud affecting the council. This includes feedback on any changes needed to procedures to prevent fraud reoccurring. |
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Coordinating submission of data to the Public Sector Fraud Authority for the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching programme and investigation of subsequent matches. |
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Acting as a single point of contact for the Department for Work and Pensions, to provide data to support housing benefit investigations. |
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3 The overall level of service is based on an indicative number of days for planning purposes (983 for 2024/25). Figure 1 below shows the proportion of time we expect to deliver across each area during the year.
Figure 1: Indicative spilt of counter fraud work
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4 The split of activities shown in the figure above are not fixed. Actual work will depend on the level of suspected fraud referred to the team. We will also keep priorities for proactive and other counter fraud work under review, to ensure counter fraud resources continue to be used in the areas of greatest value to the council.