The Council has a Corporate Investigation Unit that carries out both Investigative work and preventative work. The team consists of 7 members led by a unit manager with 3 working on Investigations and prosecutions and 3 on data intelligence and matching. The unit manager provides support and advice to both areas as well signing off case reports relating to fraud investigations. There are 3.3 members of staff (3.2 fte) working on investigations and 3.7 members of staff (3.6 fte) working on prevention. The work on prevention includes the Council Tax Counter Fraud initiative looking at single persons discounts (SPD’s)

The number of accredited officers ACFS is 3 or 2.8 fte’s.

The number of occasions the team have used powers under the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud (Power to Require Information) (England) Regulations 2014 is 3.

The gross budget for the whole service is £373,000 with £187,000 spent on investigations and prosecutions and £186,000 spent on prevention and intelligence. The Council receives £40,000 from the County Council to part fund the Council Tax Counter Fraud Initiative which is funding prevention and intelligence work.

The team carried out 28 investigations, did 74 housing related fraud prevention checks and 2,811 council tax single person discount review checks.