Tuesday June 17th 2025
East Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Fraud investigations have helped save East Lothian Council almost £450,000 this year with homes reclaimed and invalid blue badges cancelled.
The council’s counter fraud officer worked with the National Fraud Initiative to identify possible cons leading to savings of more than £230,000 involving people who were dead and on housing waiting lists or receiving benefits.
It also saw 90 blue badges which also belonged to people who had died or moved out of the area removed and nearly £74,000 in additional council tax brought in after people who were not entitled to single person discounts because they were not living alone have it withdrawn.
A report to the council’s audit and governance committee revealed the work of the fraud officer who works jointly with East Lothian and Midlothian local authorities in a shared post.
It also revealed that an investigation into tenancy fraud had led to one council house being recovered from a permanent resident and three more temporary properties coming back into its vacant list.
Councillors were told that in some cases people had moved away from the area or were sub letting the properties and had been ‘encouraged to abandon them’ so the council could recover them.
A council officer told the committee: “The benefit here is not just in savings but in bringing a house back into use for tenants who really need it.”
Councillors welcomed the report and were told the counter fraud officer role, which was introduced on a trial basis two years ago was now being made permanent with scope to expand in the future.
The report said: “Within the last year the counter fraud officer has investigated in excess of 1000 cases and provided estimated savings of £449,530 and the council has or is actively recovering £73,904 of income/wrongly paid expenditure and has brought back into use one (permanent) council property.”
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