Crawley Borough Council’s fraud team has saved the authority more than £1.6m in the space of three months.
A report to the audit committee on Monday (March 17) detailed the work of the corporate fraud and investigation team, between November 15 2024 and February 28.
The team is currently investigating 132 cases. Eight relate to council tax support, 21 to housing, one to fly-tipping, and 102 to the Right to Buy council homes.
Between November and February, their work saw five homes returned to council hands, at a total value of £136,500, while the allocation of another four to people who were not entitled to them, was prevented, with a total worth of £109,200.
On top of that 12 Right to Buy deals, with a total value of £1,228,800, were prevented. The committee was told that this did not necessarily mean fraud had been detected – people may have simply withdrawn from the sale process.
In some cases, though, the rules had been broken. The meeting was told that one tenant had moved overseas but, rather than giving up his Crawley Homes property as required, he chose instead to sublet.
The fraud team was tipped off by a concerned housing officer, who joined an investigator to visit the property.
After initially confirming that he was not the tenant, the sub-letter – along with another man who was also living in the house – refused to answer any calls or letters.
The meeting was told that he knew the home belonged to the council but had been told “not to answer the door in case it was somebody from the council”.
Eventually, though, he went to the town hall and gave a statement. The keys were recovered and the home was issued to one of the people on the housing waiting list.
