Public Sector

All Scottish councils "must learn from the weaknesses" that allowed a council employee’s £1.1 million fraud go undetected over 17 years, the public spending watchdog for local government has said.

Between 2006 and 2023, Michael Paterson, who was employed as a council tax and recovery team leader for Aberdeen City Council, transferred 655 council tax refund payments totalling £1.109m into his own bank account.

The fraud was identified by the council in September 2023. Paterson was charged by Police Scotland in December that year and dismissed by the council. He received a four-year prison sentence at the High Court in Edinburgh in July 2024.

The council said it expects to be able to recover the lost funds, with no loss to the taxpayers whose accounts were affected.

However, in a new report published on Thursday, the Accounts Commission said it is concerned that whilst the council had a system of controls in place, "these were not adhered to and lacked scrutiny".

Fraudsters have stolen more than £100m from the NHS in the past five years, exploiting weaknesses in IT systems to commit crimes ranging from stealing credit card data to hacking supplier emails, The Independent can reveal.

Scams have cost the NHS the equivalent of funding more than 2,000 senior nurses’ salaries for a year or providing over 20,000 rounds of radiotherapy for cancer patients.

Experts warned that the “inexcusable” losses, revealed as part of an Independent investigation, were ones the already overstretched health service can “ill afford”, calling for the NHS to protect itself better against fraud.

In total, the cost of fraud to the NHS in England was £101m in the five years to 2023/24.

NAO analysis of the impact of fraud and error on public funds shows the total has grown dramatically in the last two years.

The National Audit Office has just published our overview of the impact of fraud and error on public funds for the new parliament.

It’s aimed primarily at members of parliament to brief them on the issue of fraud and error and how government can best tackle it. We have sent it to every MP and made it available for all to read on our website.

£110m will fund fraud-and-error hiring drives in both departments, while HMRC also gets £262m for debt-management staff.

The Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue of Customs have been allocated nearly £400m in the Budget for more staff to target fraud and error in the benefits system and help close the tax gap.

https://www.civilserviceworld.com//professions/article/dwp-hmrc-budget-counter-fraud-tax-debt-management-staff-funding

A Loughborough husband and wife have been charged with fraud and money laundering related to a Covid-era scheme for personal protective equipment (PPE), worth almost £1.9m.

Jogesh and Meenakshi Bhandari appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, October 30, denying the charges.

The Chancellor has promised a “crackdown” on fraud in the welfare system but the Government’s plan to carry on with benefit reforms previously announced by the Conservatives to save £3 billon has been branded “bitterly disappointing”.

Rachel Reeves said she wants to ensure welfare spending is “more sustainable”.

Labour has previously said fraud and error in the social security system costs the Government almost £10 billion a year.

The National Fraud Initiative is held every two years to detect fraud and error in spending from public bodies.

A financial watchdog has identified £3.7m in potential fraud in Northern Ireland’s public sector over the last two years.

The results of the eighth National Fraud Initiative (NFI) was published on Tuesday by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Dorinnia Carville.

The NAO's Joshua Reddaway shares what to look out for in Rachel Reeves's first Budget.

With the Autumn Budget fast approaching, civil servants have been pulling together spending proposals and are now discussing them with Treasury officials and ministers.

If you are interested in how government tackles losses to the taxpayer from fraud and error, then what should you look out for?

Gedling Borough Council has already recovered £330,000 from a former employee who stole almost £1 million from the authority over 20 years.

Ex Senior Assistant Accountant Alan Doig, 57, authorised regular payments to himself to fund his gambling addiction.

He admitted the fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison last Wednesday (October 2).

A former Gedling Borough Council accountant who stole almost £1 million from the authority over 20 years appeared “a decent guy” and “a typical accountant”, shocked former colleagues have said.

Alan Doig, 57, diverted the public money to his account to fund his gambling addiction.

The Senior Assistant Accountant, of Bedale Road, Daybrook, is starting a five year prison sentence after he admitted the fraud.