Issue - meetings

4.20pm

Report by the Director of Finance

This report presents the Counter Fraud Strategy and Plan for 2019/20 and a review of activity from 2018/19.

The committee is RECOMMENDED to:

a)               note the summary of activity from 2018/19; and

b)              comment and note the Counter Fraud Strategy and Plan for 2019/20.

Recommendations agreed.

Sarah Cox introduced the report and responded to Members questions as follows:

·         The multi-disciplinary approach referred to in paragraph 6 means having all relevant people in the discussion, for example legal, children’s services.

·         The Chief Internal Auditor met with the Head of Fraud at West Oxfordshire District Council to further improve linkages there.  This is particularly important in improving prevention of fraud.

·         The Council has not pulled out of its arrangements with the City Council on Single-person Discounts.  There have been communications issues there but the work is continuing in part.

·         With Direct Payments, where there used to be one or two cases reported annually, there are now 10 to 20 cases of financial abuse by or against a service-user.  One case potentially in excess of £40,000 was referred to the police but no action has been taken yet.  OCC’s focus is on prevention.

·         The whistleblower pages were reviewed to ensure that staff were clear on the names and numbers they could contact.

RESOLVED: to

a)            note the summary of activity from 2018/19; and

b)           comment and note the Counter Fraud Strategy and Plan for 2019/20.