This report is to provide an overview on all counter fraud activity across the Council’s services throughout the previous calendar year and represent an up-to-date account of the work undertaken, including progress and outcomes aligned with our strategy and core objectives.

The committee were presented with the 2025 Annual Fraud Report which outlined the council’s counter?fraud activity over the past year. The report covered fraud?related work across corporate fraud, parking enforcement, information security, and trading standards.  It was noted that fraud poses a direct financial risk to the council, reducing funds available for essential public services.  The latest report included multi?year data analysis to identify trends and additional background papers for benchmarking.

Notable achievements in 2025 included:

o   A 78% reduction in successful cyber?fraud incidents.

o   Over 5,000 proactive data?matching reviews.

o   89 fraudulent or misused blue badges seized.

o   Herefordshire Council’s Trading Standards leading a major national investigation.

o   Joint investigations with Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and the National Health Service (NHS) in areas such as council tax and social care fraud.

o   The total value of counter?fraud activity in 2025 exceeded £350,000.

Members queried the corporate fraud workload, noting that 47 cases carried over from 2024 plus 141 new cases in 2025 seemed high.

Officers explained that cases are managed through a risk?rating system, with some types of fraud naturally taking longer to resolve.

Questions were raised about the reported 78% reduction in cyber fraud. Officers explained that improvements were due to multiple factors: better alerting systems, stronger device security (including upgrades to Microsoft 365), increased IT testing, and regular staff mandatory cybersecurity training. These measures have helped identify compromised devices quickly and reduce successful attacks.

Members explored the financial balance between fraud?prevention spending and recovered value. Officers clarified that although exact figures are difficult to isolate, the council clearly sees a positive return on investment when considering the combined work of fraud teams across different services.

Members further questioned the council’s resilience to serious cyber attacks, referencing high?profile breaches in other organisations. Officers emphasised that while the fraud team oversees detection and management of fraud incidents, responsibility for wider cyber?security controls sits with the IT team.

The Committee requested more information on ICT preparedness to be presented to a future meeting to give further detail of the measures being taken to protect the council from fraudulent activity/cyber-attacks.

Resolved, that the Committee:  note the annual fraud arrangements and confirm them as satisfactory and an accurate account of the latest counter fraud activity across services

Action 2025/26-07:  The Director of Finance to bring detail (ICT preparedness) to the next committee (24 March).