Decision - Counter Fraud Annual Report 2025/26

Brighton and Hove Audit, Standards & General Purposes Committee Decided 23 Jun 2026 for determination GET /api/coverage

Decision maker

Audit, Standards & General Purposes Committee

Report author

Carolyn Sheehan

Published

24 Jun 2026

Reference

7636

As published

the council's own words, unedited

The report provides members with an update on all counter fraud activity completed during 2025/26.

RESOLVED – That the Audit, Standards, and General Purposes Committee note the fraud activity completed during 1st April 2025 to 31 st March 2026.

Parsed from the document

gpt-5.6-luna-2026-07-09 · 4368/910 tokens · 7399ms · parsed 8 Sep 2026 11:35

Everything below was read out of a PDF by a model It is useful and it is not authoritative. The document it came from is linked in the rail, and where the two disagree the document is right.

The report summarises Brighton & Hove City Council’s counter-fraud and irregularity investigation work during 2025/26. It records 35 allegations, estimated fraud prevented or detected of approximately £21,846, and housing-tenancy fraud activity that recovered eight properties and generated estimated savings of £1,075,236.

Financial impact

Approximately £21,846 in fraud prevented or detected; estimated 2025/26 tenancy-fraud savings of £1,075,236, including £626,400 from properties recovered, £325,508 from housing applications withdrawn, £102,400 from Right-to-Buy applications withdrawn, £16,559 in council tax and £4,369 in housing benefit.

Ward affected

city-wide

Stakeholders named

parsed

Brighton & Hove City CouncilCouncil officers and MembersCouncil employeesCouncil tenantsResidentsHousing applicantsBenefits and social care recipientsNeighbouring councilsNational Fraud Initiative participants

Next steps

parsed

Continue investigating the eight active referrals.
Continue reviewing National Fraud Initiative data matches, including live payroll enquiries.
Implement management actions to strengthen contract management and supplier invoice reconciliation.
Ensure staff involved in procuring goods and services have access to appropriate procurement advice and guidance.
Continue proactive fraud prevention, fraud-awareness training and partnership intelligence-sharing.
Continue housing-tenancy fraud investigations and recovery activity.

Precedents

not built

"Decided elsewhere" is not built Finding the same decision in other councils needs semantic matching over decision text, which is part of the search rewrite. Until then, the council's own decisions list is the way through.