Nuneaton shows huge return from fraud investigations

In the period covering April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022, the council’s counter fraud officer completed 263 investigations.

These identified cashable savings to the public purse of approximately £336,938 and further notional savings of approximately £1,536,888. The latter are the estimated future savings to the public purse following the investigation.

The officer has been employed by the council since June 2018, in a shared role with North Warwickshire Borough Council and he spends 60 per cent of his time investigating fraud allegations at NBBC and 40 per cent at NWBC.

The notional saving calculations are in line with those used by the Cabinet Office for their data matching exercise, the National Fraud Initiative.

This is conducted to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud with data being provided by some 1,200 organisations from both the public and private sectors - Nuneaton and Bedworth being one of them.

Cllr Sam Croft, cabinet member for finance and corporate affairs at NBBC, said: “I'm delighted that the counter fraud officers have been so successful this year, I'd like to thank them for their exceptional efforts increasing savings for the taxpayer by £336,938.

“As an administration we are acutely aware that there is no such thing as government money, only money provided by the taxpayer.

“Fraud against the council means that the citizen then has to pay more, so we are determined to stamp out any criminality or activity that defrauds the taxpayer in such tough economic times.’’