The Audit Commission is an independent body responsible for ensuring that public money is spent economically, efficiently and effectively, to achieve high-quality local services for the public.
Since 1996 the Audit Commission has run the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), an exercise that matches electronic data within and between audited bodies to prevent and detect fraud. This includes police authorities, local probation boards and fire and rescue authorities as well as local councils. To date, an estimated £450 million of fraud and overpayments have been identified from this work and the initiative has attracted international recognition. In 2006/07 this approach has led to £140 million of fraud and overpayments being detected.
The use of data for NFI purposes continues to be controlled to ensure compliance with data protection and human rights legislation. A revised Code of data matching practice was published and laid before Parliament on 21 July 2008 and replaces the previous Code published by the Commission in 2006.
NFI news (updated 23 September 2009)
NFI 2008/09 Data Matching for Council Tax Single Person Discount Fraud
A letter was sent to Local Authority Directors of Finance on the 11th September 2009 reminding them of the requirement to submit council tax and electoral register data for a Council Tax Single Person Discount data match. The council tax data is required in October 2009 and the electoral register data in December 2009 (the full timetable detailing the dates for extraction and submission of data).
As usual data should be submitted via the Data File Upload facility (DFU) within the secure NFI website. Full details of the data requirements can be found in the 2008/09 Handbook.
The data specifications are available below.
Please note: The council tax and electoral register data provided by some councils earlier in 2009 was a delayed submission for the previous NFI exercise. As such this request for NFI 2008/09 data still applies.
NFI unlawful subletting exercise
In August 2009, the Rt Hon John Healey MP announced a national crack down on unlawful subletting in the social housing sector. As part of this, he announced that the government would pay for all RSLs with more than 1,000 properties to participate in a rerun of the housing module of the NFI exercise which aims to identify tenants who are housed in social dwellings, but who fail entitlement rules because they have tenancies elsewhere. This will extend the benefits of NFI to more social housing providers.
A letter was sent on the 11th August to all local authorities with housing stock to request a resubmission of their housing rents data as at the 30th September 2009 and all RSLs with more than 1,000 properties were invited to participate. RSLs should send confirmation of their intention to participate to nfiqueries@audit-commission.gov.uk including details of their Director of Finance (or equivalent Senior Officer) and the nominated NFI Key Contact. Once this confirmation has been received, login details for the secure NFI website will be provided.
The data should be submitted, by 9th October 2009, via the Data File Upload facility (DFU) within the secure NFI website. Full details of the data requirements are below.
NFI matters - 2008/09 first edition now available
The first edition of the NFI matters newsletter for the 08/09 cycle is now available. In our bid to be more environmentally friendly we will not be printing this or future newsletters. We would also like you to join in our efforts and only print the newsletter if it is really necessary.
This edition contains case studies and articles on the web application new features, trade creditor improvements and insurance fraud.