Local authorities detected or prevented £302m of fraud during 2017/18, according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).
While this was £34m less than last year’s total, the CIPFA Fraud and Corruption Tracker (CFaCT) report revealed an overall increase in the number of individual cases – up to 80,000, from the 75,000 cases found in 2016/17.
CIPFA said that the number of serious or organised crime cases doubled to 56, and identified a significant increase in the amount lost to business rates fraud, which jumped to £10.4m from £4.3m in 2016/17.
CIPFA said that fraud costs local government anywhere from £2.1bn to £7bn every year.
Rob Whiteman, chief executive of CIPFA said: “Fraud is a serious issue for local authorities. We must collaborate to combat it and adopt a cross country strategic approach if we are to make serious inroads in the fight against fraud.
“Fraud deprives the government of the vital resources it needs to provide public services. When local government is running on empty – as it is now – it needs to preserve every last drop.”
