Action to protect council tax payers saves £3 million

Measures to make the collection of benefits and taxes by Bristol City Council more effective are expected to save more than £3m. Action by the council to protect council tax payers includes tightening up procedures for erroneous claims or genuine errors and more effective action to tackle fraud. Examples include:
 
· A review of 68,000 single occupancy council tax discounts across the city which has led to the removal of discounts. These removals will have reduced the value of discounts awarded by an expected £1.7m by the end of this financial year (when compared with the same time last year) of this discounts of over £0.6m will be saved on an ongoing annual basis.
 
· A review of council tax student exemptions during 2010/11 led to the removal of approximately 35% of all exemptions (approx £1.9 million) at that time. This included identifying a number of bogus colleges that were being used to falsely claim the student exemption. This review has enabled an estimated overall growth in genuine student exemptions since that time of £2.1m to be absorbed with minimal impact on the council tax payer

· The council is currently urgently reviewing the system of housing benefit for supported housing. Levels of support vary from provider to provider, with many of the extra costs met directly by local authorities. The council recognises that some providers offer very valuable services, and indeed the call to review the system to provide more consistency is backed by these providers. The council is working with neighbouring authorities and calling on the Government to review the regulations.

Gary Hopkins, Cabinet Member for Targeted Improvements said: “In this current financial climate it is vital that the council ensures we only allow benefits, discounts and allowances where there is genuine entitlement.

“These are often very difficult issues to tackle as many cases can be simple errors by claimants. This is not about being heavy handed or clamping down unnecessarily, but rather the council becoming much more efficient and tightening up our procedures.

“Fraudulent or erroneous claims reduce the amount of available council tax revenue the council has to spend on local frontline services and takes away from those who have genuine need.

“We have made substantial progress this financial year and we will continue to target work at areas where fraud risk is highest and take actions to punish anyone it identifies as having abused public money.”

If fraud, bribery or corruption is suspected by members of the public it should be reported without delay, either by calling the Bristol Fraud Hotline - (01179 222470) or the Benefit Fraud hotline on 0500 554535.

The National Fraud Authority estimates that fraud against local government costs the tax payer an estimated £2.1bn each year and has issued a draft strategy on behalf of the Government for tackling this.

A report to the council’s Audit Committee this Friday (3 February) sets out a new Anti Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Strategy and policy. It states that local authorities are currently constrained in their response to fraud and urges the Government to take action in the following areas:

· Information and sharing - legislation makes it difficult for investigators to access and use information about fraudsters and their activities
· Incentives - currently there are few rewards for local authorities who invest resource in tackling fraud effectively and often recoveries made must be passed back to central government rather than being retained as a contribution to council budgets
· Powers - improving the powers of local authority investigators to facilitate effective investigations instead of having to rely on the police and other enforcement agencies to do so.