CTSPD service used to identify incorrectly claimed council tax discounts

The Borough of Gedling is in the county of Nottinghamshire and forms part of the Nottingham urban area. The Borough provides services for over 117,000 residents, managing a budget of £12.1 million.

BACKGROUND

In recent years, like all local authorities, Gedling Borough Council has had to deliver more with fewer resources.

To be able to continue to provide essential services, the Council has implemented a series of fraud detection and prevention solutions to reduce the cost of fraud and error ensuring that funding is spent where citizens need it most.

The Borough provides services for over 117,000 residents

APPROACH

Gedling Borough Council supports the work done by the National Fraud Initiative and signed up to use the Premium Council Tax Single Persons Discount (CTSPD) matching service soon after its launch.

The service provides a comprehensive view of the household composition of an individual claiming a council tax single person discount. The National Fraud Initiative has partnered with a leading credit referencing bureau to deliver this premium service which allows for the prompt identification of incorrectly claimed council tax single person discounts.

The Council submitted a file containing nearly 18,000 individuals claiming single person discount. The matching, which took only 5 days, categorised the cases into high, medium, low and nil risk of CTSPD error or fraud.

The matching, taking only 5 days, categorised nearly 18,000 individuals into risk levels

VALUE ANALYSIS

Once the matching was complete, the returned matches were displayed in ReCheck in a dashboard format which made it easier for the Council to review and prioritise its investigations.

The dashboard also gives the option to either work with the risk scores applied to the referrals or select specific fraud risk areas. To date the council has successfully generated £33,588 in increased council tax revenue due to the successful removal of single person discounts being claimed fraudulently or in error.

£33,588 generated in council tax revenue

RECOMMENDATIONS

A spokesperson from Gedling Borough Council said:

"Using the NFI Premium CTSPD is a simple, cost-effective way to maintain the accuracy of the council tax database. The system is flexible and enables us to check against other sources of data, at a time that suits our business need.”

If you would like more information about the NFI Premium CTSPD and ReCheck please get in touch:

Cabinet Office: nfiqueries@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Synectics Solutions

Public Sector Services Team:

Tel: 0845 3458019

Email: helpdesk@nfi.gov.uk