The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change presented a report which submitted the position statement, for Bridgend County Borough Council in respect of the recommendations made by Audit Wales in their recent report ‘Raising Our Game - Tackling Fraud in Wales’. The report also sets out the Council’s plans moving forward.

She explained that the report gave members an indication of the activity from the Council in terms of tackling fraud while providing members with the opportunity to contribute to how the Council approached fraud risk.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained the key domains from the Audit Wales Report. She added that the Council had constructed a position statement which mapped the current position within the authority against the recommendations made in the Audit Wales report. This was listed at Appendix A, and the Audit Wales Report listed at Appendix B.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained that while the recommendations from Audit Wales were primarily for Welsh Government, they applied to ourselves as well, as a Council we were responsible for our own Counter Fraud activities.

She outlined the theme relating to Risk Management & Control Framework stating that all public bodies should undertake comprehensive fraud risk assessments, using appropriately skilled staff and considering national intelligence as well as organisation specific intelligence. She outlined BCBCs position on this as listed in R3 of appendix A.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change advised that BCBC had policies, procedures and reporting mechanisms to prevent, detect and report on fraud, bribery and corruption. These

included:-

• Fraud Strategy & Framework 2018/19 – 2020/21
• Whistleblowing Policy
• ICT Code of Conduct
• Anti-Fraud & Bribery Policy
• Disciplinary Policy
• An Anti-Tax Evasion Policy was also being drafted

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change advised that staff working across the Welsh public sector should receive fraud awareness training as appropriate to their role in order to increase organisational effectiveness in preventing, detecting and responding to fraud. She stated that BCBC had a number of developments following this which were listed in R6 of Appendix A.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained that since Covid-19, fraud had been on the rise. She stated that all public bodies needed to build sufficient capacity to ensure that counter-fraud work was resourced effectively, so that investigations are undertaken professionally and in a manner that resulted in successful sanctions against the perpetrators and the recovery of losses. She added that BCBC currently employed one full time Senior Fraud Investigator. A new full time Fraud Officer post would be advertised this month. Internal Audit were also involved in investigating and helping to prevent fraud including internal investigations and NFI. Further information regarding capacity and expertise were listed in R8-R10.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained that all public bodies needed to develop and maintain dynamic and agile counter-fraud responses, which maximised the likelihood of a successful enforcement action and should explore and embrace opportunities to innovate with data analytics in order to strengthen both the prevention and detection of fraud.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change stated that BCBC was seen to be a positive partner with regards to collaboration in fraud prevention and R13 of the report listed the position that BCBC was at.

The Interim Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained that reporting and scrutiny was important and BCBC needed to collate information about losses and recoveries and share fraud intelligence with each other to establish a more accurate national picture, strengthen controls, and enhance monitoring and support targeted action. She stated that the Fraud Investigation Officers in BCBC recorded information in respect of Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) and housing benefit related cases and any system weaknesses identified during the investigation, were considered and remedied if necessary. Feedback was provided to relevant teams so they could further ‘fraud proof’ their systems. She added that that the Governance and Audit Committee also played a vital role in the reporting and scrutiny of systems in BCBC.

The Head of the Regional Internal Audit Service explained that the routine internal audits were important as a preventative measure to ensure that there were adequate systems in place for dealing with fraud. Preventative measures were always preferred over dealing with fraud after it had occurred.

He added that fraud was an ever changing issue to deal with and improving on risk assessments were an important aspect of fraud prevention.

A Member asked if a Member Development Training session could be set up in the future to have training on issues surrounding fraud and how to prevent it. The Interim Chief Finance Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained that it was something that had been looked into but there were no specifics on this as of yet.

The Interim Chief Finance Officer – Finance, Performance and Change added that there had been criticism towards the council in respect of the speed in which grants are paid out for different reasons, e.g., the non-domestic rates grants. She explained that while she understood the criticism, there was an overarching need to protect the Council’s money and preventing potential fraud, so there needed to be a balance between this and rushing to pay out grants, which could present more issues.

The Lay Member thanked the Interim Chief Finance Officer – Finance, Performance and Change for the comprehensive report and echoed the members request for training, particularly for the Governance and Audit Committee. She added that with additional training, the committee could be a useful tool in helping develop the Council’s risk assessment as each member has different background and experience to bring. The Head of the Regional Internal Audit Service stated that he would look into what training could be provided.

The Audit Wales Financial Audit Manager echoed these comments and stated that they would be happy to work with the Regional Internal Audit Service to investigate and set up training for Members and Officers.

A Member mentioned that a Police Officer spoke at a Pre Council Briefing a year ago and gave information on the topic of fraud and found it really helpful. She asked if he could be contacted again for any future training.

The Fraud Investigator for BCBC explained that he had a meeting with SWP in early December to discuss with them the deliver of remote training in early 2021.

The Chairperson asked if the fraud risk assessment was going to be provided in stages or all at once as a finished product.

The Audit Client Manager explained that the fraud risk assessment process was still in its early days and they were looking at drawing information from other local authorities about best practice, so it would be in stages as opposed to all at once.

The Chairperson asked that if any developments were made before the next Committee, could these be shared with Members so that they could feed back any comments.

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the position statement at Appendix A and the Audit Wales ‘Raising Our Game - Tackling Fraud in Wales’ report, attached at Appendix B.