More fraud to find, says Cornwall

Cornwall Council's fraud investigation team has helped with cases of benefit swindles worth more than £630,000.

Since April 2018 the fraud investigations team at County Hall has helped provide information to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in 198 fraud cases which had an overpayment value of £636,086.

Further investigations saw the DWP raise fines worth more than £30,000 and 23 prosecutions.

The team also investigates council tax support fraud and investigated 32 cases which identified more than £40,000 in overpayments. These have resulted in 10 people being successfully prosecuted and in five cases penalties have been ordered of more than £4,000.

Tenancy fraud is another area of investigation for the team which had 62 referrals since April 2018 with 12 cases where keys were returned, four right-to-buy applications were withdrawn, two false successions were identified and stopped and two withdrawals from the homeless/Home Choice register.

Prosecution action is being instigated after the team found that someone was fraudulently using the bus pass of a dead person.

The team also investigated a case of the deaths of two pension recipients not being reported, resulting in overpayment of £9,856. Action is being taken to recover the debt.

Jason Pengilly, investigations manager at the council, told the audit committee that his team treats every report seriously and will investigate anything which is sent to them.

He was asked whether more could be recovered if there were more resources for the team.

Mr Pengilly told the committee: "The more we look for the more we find."

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