Agenda item

The Council's Corporate Fraud Investigation Manager attended the meeting and provided Members with the background to the review topic.

Members were informed that Social Housing Fraud related to the abuse of the allocation and occupancy of a Council owned property.  Offenders could be either sub-letting their property, living elsewhere or claiming to be homeless when they were not. Therefore, the tenure or homelessness application would be fraudulent and the registered tenant or applicant would not have a genuine housing need.

The Committee was informed that in October 2013 the Government passed legislation to criminalise sub-letting fraud. On conviction, tenancy fraudsters faced up to two years in prison or a fine.

Members were informed that Hillingdon would use these powers to prosecute suitable cases. Reference was made to the Council's publicity on this which included "blow the whistle on Housing Cheats" posters which appeared in every issue of Hillingdon People. This had helped to generate calls to the Council's fraud hotline, and all such referrals were fully investigated by the Council.

In addition, examples of case studies which involved social housing fraud were publicised in Hillingdon People and these articles often described the improved quality of life for Hillingdon residents who had been allocated the tenancy of a recovered property. Members were informed that this generated positive feedback from residents and encouraged the reporting of suspected social housing fraud.

The Committee was informed that the Social Housing Fraud Project had commenced in October 2010 and had been initially targeted at registered Council tenants who were either sub-letting the property or were not resident, and therefore, the properties were empty.

Members were greatly encouraged that since the commencement of the project 177 properties had been recovered and re-let to people with genuine housing need.

Members were informed that the Audit Commission estimated that nationally it costs Councils on average £18,000 a year for each family placed in temporary accommodation. Working on that basis the savings to date for the 177 recovered properties   was £3,186,000.

The Team

Members were informed that the team currently comprised of two full time Housing Investigation Officer Posts, one part-time Visiting Officer, administrative support and the Corporate Fraud Investigator Manager. The Committee would receive evidence from members of the Team during the review.         

The Project Team met every week to review cases and to agree the appropriate course of action and a Legal Officer attended these meetings.

Members were provided with a brief summary of some of the data systems which the Team could access to carry out investigations but greater detail would be provided on these during the review.

Current work

Officers were currently working with a credit reference agency (Experian) to data match all Hillingdon’s housing tenancy records with credit reference data.  These matches would identify if tenants were linked to another address other than their Council property, if they had a mortgage for a different address, or if there were people other than the registered tenants living at the property.

From August 2014 Corporate Fraud Officers had been working with Housing Needs reception staff to carry out enhanced checks and verification of people’s homeless status. This work had ensured resources had only been allocated to residents with a genuine housing need.

Reference was made to other projects which included a bungalow project whereby 520 had been visited, and 5 had come back as being non-occupation. Tower blocks within the Borough would also be an area which would be investigated. 

The Committee thanked the Corporate Investigations Manager for the presentation and asked that further details be provided during the review on the data matching systems which the Team used, together with more details on other initiatives which other local authorities or private sector used, which could be used by this Council.

Reference was made to the publicity around social housing fraud and the need for residents to be better informed regarding the conditions of their tenancies. Members asked that this area be covered during the review.

It was agreed that for the next meeting, a scoping report be developed to help Members with their review.   

RESOLVED –

1.  That the information provided be noted and officers be asked to develop a scoping report for the review based on the information submitted.