ALMOST £19 million of potential savings to Scotland’s public sector have been identified in a counter-fraud operation across government, councils, Police Scotland and other public bodies.
The UK-wide National Fraud Initiative (NFI) led here every two years by Audit Scotland, found £18.6m of fraud and error, including future losses prevented by the work.
A total of 113 Scottish public bodies took part in the 2016/17 NFI.
The scheme used data matching to track down fraud and over-payments, for example comparing council tax records to the latest electoral register or blue parking badges to deceased persons’ records.
Of the total, 34% of the potential savings related to pensions (£6.3m), almost a quarter was connected to council tax discounts (£4.4m), while 14% (£2.6m) related to misuse of the blue badge disabled parking scheme.
Audit Scotland said that as of March, public bodies were taking action to recover £4.8m of over-payments.
Around 4800 council tax discounts have been removed, 280 occupational pensions stopped or reduced, 4505 blue badges stopped or flagged for future checks and 710 housing benefit payments stopped or reduced.
Fiona Kordiak, director of audit services, said: “Systems underpinning public spending are complex and errors can happen.
“There are also some individuals who seek to exploit the systems and fraudulently obtain services to which they are not entitled.
“What these latest results demonstrate is the value of data matching to Scotland’s public finances at a time when budgets continue to be under pressure."
Audit Scotland’s report noted there is strong evidence that most bodies take advantage of the opportunities provided by the NFI but said some could act more promptly to investigate matches, prevent frauds and correct errors.
The report makes a number of recommendations to support further improvement by participating bodies.
Anne Cairns, who worked on the report, said there were two main reasons why the NFI was needed.
“The systems underpinning public spending are complex and errors can happen,” she said. “And secondly, sadly there are some individuals who seek to exploit the systems and fraudulently obtain services to which they’re not entitled.”
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