Thursday 30th October, 2014

Fraud valued at £188 million was detected by England’s councils in 2013/14, a ten-fold increase since 1990. The figure beats all records for the past 25 years, the Audit Commission revealed in its latest report on fraud in local government.

The 'Protecting the Public Purse' report looks at the landscape of fraud against councils and how this has changed since the first report was produced by Audit Commission in 1990.

Jeremy Newman, Chairman of the Audit Commission, comments: "Protecting the Public Purse has helped local government foster greater transparency and accountability around its response to fraud."

He added, "I believe it also encouraged the sector to develop a real passion for fighting fraud – a passion that has ensured that £188 million of fraud was detected by English councils in 2013/14: the highest total value we have recorded and a six per cent increase on the result we reported for 2012/13."

In 2010/11, councils detected 145 cases of procurement fraud worth nearly £14.6 million. In 2013/14, they detected 127 cases worth less than £4.5 million.

The improvements in addressing fraud in local government are at risk; with councils under continued financial pressure, as any reduction in fraud investigators is matched by a similar fall in the detection of housing benefit fraud.