Trio of officers at Welsh council help save taxpayers £1.2m

Richard Youle – Local democracy worker

Three officers at a Welsh council have helped save taxpayers an estimated £1.2m by investigating fraud and overpayments.

The trio’s presence at Swansea Council also has a significant deterrent value, a council report said.

The counter-fraud team, known as fraud function, investigates things like council tax reduction, social housing tenancy, and Blue Badge parking fraud.

They also do special investigations, fraud awareness work, and employee-related investigations. Part of the work is in tandem with bodies such as the Department for Work and Pensions and South Wales Police.

Their work over the past 12 months was discussed at a council governance and audit committee meeting where chair Paula O’Connor praised their impact despite having just three staff. “The counter-fraud team is doing a tremendous job,” she said.

In 2025-26 the team helped recover £480,980.8p of overpayments – mainly in welfare benefits and housing benefit – compared to £417,002.75 the previous year.

Housing benefit overpayments were lower in 2025-26 than the year before but welfare benefit ones shot up from £200,507.02 to £302,174.55.

The team’s work also results in so-called notional overpayments, which were calculated at £771,214.70 in 2025-26, a tiny bit higher than the previous year. Most of this sum was achieved by bringing nine social homes back into stock for proper use following an investigation into properties being used as short-term holiday accommodation.

Together the actual overpayments and notional overpayments totalled £1,252,305.56.

One of the team, corporate fraud manager Jonathon Rogers, said four welfare benefit cases were successfully prosecuted in court in 2025-26 and seven Blue Badge warning notices were issued.

The team carried out 13 employee investigations of which 10 have been concluded with one case resulting in resignation and another in a formal warning.

Mr Rogers also said the council had been involved in a multi-agency investigation in London involving many other authorities.

A separate report by auditors Audit Wales said the council had a clear zero-tolerance approach to fraud and strong corporate support for tackling it. But it also identified gaps such as the absence of a comprehensive fraud risk assessment. The council has responded to the findings.

Counter-fraud training is provided to employees but it’s not mandatory and Audit Wales’ report said only 24 members of staff had completed the training module. Current training is available for up to 2,000 council staff via a particular website.

Ness Young, director of corporate services, said consideration would be given to potentially making the training mandatory.

Speaking after the meeting council leader Rob Stewart said: “The council has a responsibility to ensure public money and public services are protected. This report highlights the wide range of work carried out by our fraud team throughout the year and the outcomes that have been achieved.”

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