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Councillors

Volume 494: debated on Monday 15 June 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 20 April 2009, Official Report, column 423-4W, on councillors, for what reasons the Audit Commission decided to collect data on all local councillors during its next scheduled exercise; and what assessment the Audit Commission made of the level of risk of fraud involving elected members prior to that decision. (280013)

This is an operational matter for the Audit Commission, and I will ask the chief executive of the Audit Commission to write to the hon. Member direct.

Letter from Steve Bundred, dated 15 June 2009:

Your Parliamentary Question has been passed to me for reply.

Data on local councillors has been collected since 1998. During each cycle of the National Fraud Initiative, local authorities have been required to submit payroll data that includes salaries, wages and members allowances.

Prior to 1998 and based on known frauds reported by audited bodies, pilot exercises were run to determine the value of data matching payroll within NFI. The pilot data was used to provide anomalies to audited bodies and as a result of their investigations they detected significant numbers of payroll and housing benefit frauds by public sector employees and elected members. Consequently payroll became a core element of the data used in NFI. The long standing principle of running pilots to assess the fraud risk in a dataset is enshrined in the Commission’s Code of Data Matching Practice laid before Parliament in July 2008.

Individual case studies and the total of frauds detected have been reported in the NFI national reports published at the end of each exercise and many have been covered by local and national media particularly where custodial sentences have resulted. Many local authorities have rightly adopted a zero tolerance approach to fraud and it is important that this is as robust with staff and elected members as it is with members of the public.

A copy of this letter will be placed in Hansard.