UNISON has warned that housing benefit and council tax fraud will reach record highs, as Sheffield Council becomes the latest local authority to pull the plug on fraud department funding.
The UK’s largest union is concerned that criminals will exploit the system, as the council plans to axe £3.3m from its contract to Capita, leading to half the 14 officers in the department losing their jobs.
John Cafferty, UNISON’s Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Secretary, said:
“Halving the fraud team will make the council a soft target for criminals. The staff that are left will struggle to handle the sheer volume of fraud cases.
“Benefit cheats will have a field day, as hundreds of ongoing fraud cases will have to be be dropped, benefit hotline calls will go unanswered and detection and prosecution targets are dropped.
“Cutting staff is a false economy. The council could easily end up paying out more than a million pounds to benefits criminals, a disgusting waste of council taxpayers’ money – particularly when council budgets are being squeezed by the Government.”
Sheffield Council pays out more than £185 million of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit each year – last year alone the team recovered more than £1.5m in overpayments. The Capita team pursued one criminal prosecution that resulted in a combined custodial sentence of 11 years for three people who defrauded over £1 million.