WIREDGOV

Responding to the release of the Audit Commission's Protecting the Public Purse Report, Cllr Peter Fleming, Chairman of the LGA's Improvement and Innovation Board, said:

"Councils are getting better all the time at finding and catching the determined fraudsters ripping off honest taxpayers, and despite cutbacks in council funding local authorities are reeling in more cheats than ever before.

"It's vitally important that every penny of public money is properly accounted for and local government is determined to stamp out fraudulent behaviour. This year the LGA helped to devise and launch Fighting Fraud Locally, the first national framework to tackle fraud against councils and it is already paying dividends. This initiative, combined with the introduction of tougher deterrents next year such as making social housing fraud a criminal offence, will make councils better equipped than ever to tackle fraud.

"We are working very hard to ensure that those councils with the most experience and success in tackling fraud share their knowhow with the rest of the sector and our partners in central government. As part of that process a LGA funded pilot was recently launched that will support groups of councils who want to work across authority boundaries to counter tenancy fraud."

Author: LGA Media Office
Contact: Dale Atkinson, LGA Media Team, Telephone: 020 7664 3333.