Lambeth Labour draft in fraud busting cop

Under the Lib dems Councillor Keith Fitchett failed to prevent a £3million fraud in the housing department.

Labour Councillors have delivered on another of their manifesto pledges by drafting in a cop to deal with fraud or corruption that occurs at the council. That includes identifying fraud among benefit claimants and illegal activity among council staff themselves.

Under the previous Liberal Democrat and Conservative Administration a fraudster managed to swindle the council’s housing department out of £2.8 million, one of the biggest ever examples of fraud in local government history. Their soft approach to tackling fraud meant Council tenants had repairs and maintenance cancelled because so much money had been lost. Labour is determined that this must not happen again.

Council bosses are already confidently predicting that the new recruit will save the council over £300,000 in the first year alone. As well as hunting for fraudsters, the new man will be working with the council’s housing benefits officers and internal auditors.

As well as making it easier for the police and the council to share intelligence, he has the power to make arrests, which council officers do not have. In the past, the council has had to rely on the co-operation of suspects but the new cop’s presence means it now has a much stronger hand. The council will no longer have to solely rely on the cooperation of the people they are investigating to build a case against suspected fraudsters.

Labour’s Jim Dickson Jim Dickson has borught in a full time police officer to the council to tackle fraud.

Jim Dickson and the new police officer recently appeared on a joint platform to relaunch the council’s anti fraud strategy

Councillor Jim Dickson, Lambeth Labour’s Cabinet Member for Finance, is delighted the council now has the new police officer on board. He said:

“The Lib Dems and Tories were a soft touch when it comes to fraud and Labour wants to send out the message that this has changed now that we run the council . It is important that we take this issue seriously, because every penny we give out to a fraudster is money we cannot spend on front line services.”

“Having a police officer here has already made it tougher to defraud Lambeth Council, and we have a policy of always prosecuting people who try to fraudulently claim benefits.”

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