Fraud and Corruption

Fraud is a big drain on the council's finances: the National Fraud Authority has estimated that it costs the country more than £2bn a year.

The council is trying to tackle fraud in a number of areas including: fraudulent applications under the Right to Buy scheme; unlawful use of social housing; false claims for various types of benefit (excluding housing benefit) and other financial support including social care payments; abuse of the Blue Badge scheme; and fraudulently claiming council tax and business rate discounts.

The council participates in the national data matching exercise, the National Fraud Initiative, to prevent and detect fraud. This involves sharing data relating to our employees, tenants and service users with other public sector organisations. We comply fully with all legal and data protection requirements.

Personal information that we hold about you may be shared with fraud prevention agencies, who will use it to prevent fraud and money-laundering, and to verify your identity. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services, finance or employment. Further details of how your information will be used by us and these fraud prevention agencies, and your data protection rights, are available on request - email: fraudcall@haringey.gov.uk

• You can find more information on our Privacy Statement page

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Reporting fraud

We want to encourage our residents, businesses and members of the public to report any cases where they suspect fraud or corruption.

If you have any concerns about fraud, we want to know:

• Email us at: fraudcall@haringey.gov.uk
• Call our Fraud and Whistleblowing Hotline on: 0330 808 4269
• Write to us at:
  P.O. Box 22727
  London
  N22 7WS

Our Whistleblowing Hotline 0330 808 4269 is a direct line monitored by senior members of the Audit and Risk Management team. We will take your concerns seriously and ensure that we treat them in the strictest confidence.

Please note: The Department for Work and Pensions is now responsible for investigating all housing benefit fraud. You can report benefit fraud online (external link), or call their hotline on 0800 854 440 (textphone 0800 320 0512).

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Strategy

We aim to provide excellent services to all our users. However, like any other large organisation, there is a risk of fraud and corruption happening.

We are committed to developing a culture of honesty, and zero tolerance to fraud and corruption.

We expect all Councillors, employees, consultants, contractors, and service users to be honest, and to give us any help and information we need, so we can deal properly with fraud and corruption.

You can download the anti-fraud and corruption strategy and fraud response plan below. This sets out how employees, or members of the public can let us know about suspected cases of fraud or corruption and how we will deal with these cases.

Anti-fraud and Corruption Strategy (December 2020)

• Anti-fraud and Corruption Strategy (PDF, 112KB)
• Appendix 1: Fraud response plan (PDF, 38KB)
• Appendix 2: Whistleblowing policy (PDF, 64KB)
• Appendix 3: Sanctions policy (PDF, 43KB)
• Appendix 4: Money laundering (PDF, 56KB)
• Appendix 5: Anti-bribery policy (PDF, 42KB)

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