Issue - meetings

Report of the Director - Finance and Corporate Services

Mr Armstrong from BDO, the Council’s Internal Auditors, presented the Annual Fraud Report 2025/26 which summarised any incidences of fraud and fraud prevention activities at Rushcliffe Borough Council.

Mr Armstrong said that no fraud had been identified during the year, either by Internal Audit or by management. He said that the Council had engaged in National Fraud Initiative activity and referred to the table on page 89 which included data matching information in relation to housing benefit awards and council tax. He said that he and a colleague had held a training session for management and one of the recommendations had been to broaden that training out to other members of staff, with the Council having rolled out an e-learning module to Officers. The Assistant Director of Finance added that the Council would also be rolling out e-learning on Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s (CIPFA) Failure to Prevent. Mr Armstrong said that the next annual audit would include some coverage of fraud awareness.

Councillor Gaunt asked about whistleblowing and Mr Armstrong said that whistleblowing was an important route for staff to raise concerns about potential fraud or other matters and thought that having a very low number of whistleblowing reports could indicate either that there were no concerns or that employees were not sufficiently aware of how to report them. The Assistant Director of Finance added that the Council’s whistleblowing policy had been publicised to staff and further work would be undertaken to test awareness, including whether employees knew where to find the policy and how to report concerns.

The Chair asked whether the Council benchmarked against fraud incidents at other councils to learn from serious fraud cases elsewhere. Mr Armstrong confirmed that Internal Audit used sector intelligence and examples from other authorities to inform audit planning, training and discussions with management, which included considering whether similar risks could exist locally and whether controls in place were sufficiently robust. The Assistant Director of Finance said that the Council had a number of external sources, such as banking partners and Internal and External Audit, who would notify them of risks and which the Council would communicate to relevant Officers, with this monitoring and awareness taking place throughout the year.

It was RESOLVED that the Governance Scrutiny Group considered the Annual Fraud Report for 2025/26.