Prevent and detect fraud
7. Prevent and detect fraud
7.1 Evidence required by the service to support Benefit claims is set out by the Evidence Provision Policy and the Risk Based Verification Policy. These policies have been developed to help prevent fraud from entering the system through targeting resources toward high risk cases.
7.2 Verification staff are trained to the standard of the Verification Framework so they hold the skills to be able to identify fake documents
7.3 Procedures require staff to obtain evidence of a claimant’s circumstances from official databases in the first instance e.g. direct access to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), Customer Information Systems (CIS)
7.4 A list of acceptable evidence is held and regularly reviewed to inform claimants of what information is required and for decision makers to refer to when assessing claims.
7.5 Allegations about potential fraud are received from the following sources:
- decision makers in the local authorities (LA)
- decision makers at Jobcentre Plus
- staff in other Harrow council departments e.g. Housing Department, Social Services,
- Council Tax staff in other LAs – particularly those with whom we share borders
- anonymous residents in Harrow
- proactive investigations by Investigations Officers o Her Majesties Revenues and Customs (HMRC)
7.6 Housing Benefit fraud allegations are referred to the Single Fraud Investigation Service (SFIS) in DWP for investigation. The Benefit Service works with SFIS to support effective investigation of fraud within limited resources.
7.7 The service conducts interventions to assist in the detection of undeclared income, capital or household members. Interventions are carried out through a variety of channels
- Targeted review of claims, e.g. where earned income hasn’t changed for over two years
- Initiate customer contact at the point of a known change e.g. a child in the household turning 18
- Investigate discrepancies between data held by the Benefit Service and ATLAS
- National Fraud Initiative
- The Housing Benefit Matching Service (HBMS)
- Council Tax Single Person Discount review
- Train other services and put processes in place for them to identify and report potential fraud e.g. Children Services
- Controls in place to reduce the risk of internal fraud, e.g. separation of duties in respect to loading bank accounts for payment of Benefit
7.8 Data is shared between DWP, HMRC and the local authority to assist in the reduction of fraud and error in the benefit system: ATLAS. The Council has sought to maximise automation of this data share to enable high volumes of changes in entitlement to be processed with minimal resources.
7.9 Where an overpayment is raised as a result of fraud, it will have the higher rate of clawback applied and the overpayment will be prioritised for recovery, as set out in the Overpayment Policy. If DWP apply an Administration Penalty this will promptly be raised by the Benefit Service and recovery action taken to act as a deterrent from future fraud.