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Edinburgh City Council has failed to recover more than £800,000 it was defrauded out of last year.

It has emerged the council detected almost £1.2m of customer fraud in the space of 12 months – but only £355,000 of that has been recovered for the public purse.

The authority’s annual fraud detection and prevention report revealed the activity was discovered in a host of services including benefits, council tax reduction, disabled blue badges and the controversial garden waste scheme.

The garden waste service, which was rolled out last year at an annual £25 charge, has seen 203 households investigated for fraudulent activity – including properties where somebody lives who has been classed as severely mentally impaired.

The £5,076 of fraud detected in the brown bin scheme was caught before the service rolled out – so no costs were needed to be recovered.

'Never been easier' to report fraud

Finance and resources convener, Cllr Alasdair Rankin, said: “We do not tolerate any kind of fraud and always take action against those who are knowingly claiming what they are not entitled to.

“Our corporate fraud investigation team recovered at least £355,000 over the last financial year and this work is ongoing.

"It has also never been easier for people to report fraud to us, thanks to the online system we now have in place and our robust whistle-blowing arrangements.

“In cases where applicants have made genuine errors – such as incorrectly applying for an exemption they aren’t entitled to – we will work with them to resolve this issue.”

The report shows that £423,382 of fraudulent activity was detected in council tax discounts and exemptions, £252,000 for non-residency and illegal sublets of council homes and £372,996 for non-domestic rates.

'Must be addressed urgently'

Conservative finance spokesperson, Cllr Graham Hutchison, said: “Given the council’s increasingly constrained budget position, as local authorities continue to be strangled by the SNP government at Holyrood, the level of customer fraud is most disappointing.

“With finance officers running out of places to look for further measures to plug the inevitable gaps in the revenue budget, tightening up on the recovery rate from customer fraud is essential and the current poor recovery rate must be addressed urgently.

“Given the shambles around the roll out of the garden tax and the subsequent amateurish management of the brown bin collection service, it is no surprise that the council has fallen victim to fraud in this area.

“It is time for the SNP and Labour to admit their error here and end the garden tax fiasco altogether.”

In the 2018/19 financial year, fraudulent activity relating to disabled blue badges worth £2,460 was also found by officials.

Green finance spokesperson Cllr Gavin Corbett said: “Any fraud needs to be dealt with firmly and consistently, whether it is financial such as business rates fraud or non-financial like using false information to get a child into a full-up non-catchment school.

“Most of the fraud is from council tax or non-domestic rates so there is obviously work to do, not just on detection but, more importantly on recovery, all of which is needed for services.

“Brown bin fraud is a very small amount of the overall total but it is also so unnecessary given all the other administrative and collection problems with the charging scheme.

“It would have been better to have kept a free-to-use garden waste scheme back when it was decided 18 months ago.”

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