A dedicated team target their investigations to deal with Housing and Council Tax benefit fraud, from minor offences to major frauds. Help and advice is also available to anyone applying for benefits or whose circumstances have changed.
How you can help
We all have a responsibility to help the Council track down benefit cheats. We need your help to tackle benefit fraud by telling us about anyone who is cheating the system. The Council will investigate fraud claims, referring those involved in major fraud to the Police and/or Procurator Fiscal for and take steps to recovering the money.
The team will tackle fraud by:
- Prevention: ensuring all applications are fully completed and necessary validation is provided before a claim is processed
- Checking: checking claims made to Housing and Council Tax Benefit against claims for other Social Security Benefits. The Benefit Investigation Team will also carry out random checks to pick up any irregularities
- Detection: providing the support and resources to ensure that the Benefit Investigation Team can make best use of their time and catch as many fraudsters as possible
- Deterrence: ensuring, where someone is discovered to have committed a fraud, that the appropriate action is taken against that individual, including taking cases to Court wherever possible.
