WELCOME
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Opening remarks from the Chair
Martin Hilditch,
Acting Editor, Inside Housing
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Amandeep Jhawar
Audit Director
Service Matters
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Mark Connolly
Tenancy Fraud Office
Orbit East and South
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Fraud expertise
Amandeep Jhawar, Audit Director, Service Matters
• Lead on number of fraud investigations in the
social housing sector
• Lead on strategy of illegal subletting with BCC and
10 other social landlords (recognised as best
practice by Audit Commission).
Mark Connolly, Tenancy Fraud Officer, Orbit East &
South
• Currently seconded to the role of tenancy fraud
officer
• Exclusively investigating fraud since July 2013
• 10 years neighbourhood officer experience
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Profile of a fraudster
Types of fraud – case studies
Protection from fraud
Orbit Group’s approach to tenancy fraud
Global profile of a fraudster
• Age: 70% of fraudsters are aged between 36 and 55
• Employment: 61% of fraudsters are employed by the defrauded
organisation. Of these, 41% were employed there for over 6 years
• 70% of frauds involved collusion
• 56% of fraud relates to misappropriation of assets (27% being
procurement fraud)
• 24% revenue or asset gain
Opportunity – change in personal circumstances or business
pressures
Motivation – financial greed being the lead
Rationale – superiority (because I can – 29% frauds committed by
ED)
Source: KPMG International Global profiles of the fraudster 2013
Case study
• Maintenance Manager aged 38
• Employee for 8 years
• Colluded with third party
contractors
• Rationale: overlooked for
promotion
• Opportunity: weak internal
controls
• Motivation: financial greed
Silent Partner (Maintenance
Company)
£1.3m over 5 years
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Working 7am – 7pm each day
Popular
The life and soul of the party
Fixer
Earning £32k per annum
Spending 3 months in South
Africa, Australia and Cuba
 Owning a £25k 4x4
 Owning a £500k property
If I wanted to defraud your social
landlord, I would…
 Build relationships
 Try my luck
 Manipulate system weaknesses
…build close relationships…
Lettings Manager
• Took money to manipulate waiting lists
Finance Officer
• Amended cheques
• £3k
Housing Officer
• Evicted tenant and stole items
CEO
• Befriended 3rd parties
• Gave them properties
…try my luck…
500,000 invoices
• £500,000
• £5,000
Tender information
• Tenant sold to bidder
Tenant account
• £6,000
• Third party criminal
Tenant data
• Sold to loan companies
…manipulate current systems…
Poor management
Procurement card
• £10,000
• B&Q laminate
flooring
Expenses
• £7,000
• Non-existent
mileage
Poor system design
Finance systems
• Bogus supplier
• Bank account
Cash theft
• £10,000 of
resident’s
monies
If I wanted to protect your social
landlord from fraud, I would…
Prevention
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Don’t let them into the organisation
Understand the fraud risks within your
organisation
Perceived as an organisation with zero
tolerance
Separation of duties/culture of
compliance
Raise awareness of fraud – e-learning
Robust ICT security – ISO 27001
Detection
• Working patterns
• Strong culture of
confidential reporting
• Variance analysis
• Personal life style
 Internal / external audit  Anti-fraud strategy
 Declaration of interest  Awareness training
 Probity policy
 Fraud control assessments
“You cannot
eliminate fraud,
just reduce your
exposure.”
What is tenancy fraud?
• Subletting (usually at
much higher rents)
• Non occupancy by tenant
as principal home
• Obtaining tenancies by
deception
• Attempts to obtain
successions by deception
• Paying money to
exchange properties
How we came to tackle fraud in Bexley
• Part of South East London Housing
Partnership (SELHP) committed to
tackling social housing fraud
• Funding from local authority (Bexley
keen to pursue fraud)
• Bring in Fraud investigators from
Southwark Council or internal
secondment
• Orbit Group decided on internal
secondment to tackle tenancy fraud
for long term benefit
Investigations
• Identify fraud through referrals and
data matching
• Visit at unsociable hours (5.30am to
11pm)
• Use tools – credit checks,
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn,
192.com, electoral register
• Partnership with local authorities
and other social landlords
• Work to counter tenant claims – i.e.
they work 6am to 11pm
Successes
• Raised awareness throughout
Orbit South leading to referrals
from internal and external
customers – 101 referrals
(August 2013 to date)
• 28 properties recovered (August
2013 to date)
• £18,000 home loss payments
prevented (Erith Park
Redevelopment)
• £216,000 Right to Buy discounts
prevented
Successes
• £11,000 arrears
recovered / prevention
of accruing arrears
• £140,000 Housing and
Council Tax Benefit
fraud uncovered for
the council to pursue
• 5 ASB cases resolved
early through fraud
investigations
Service Matters
• Delivering services to help build
communities
• We help social landlords to
deliver added value, cost savings
and compliance
• Service Matters’ commercial
thinking will generate efficiency
savings to Orbit
• NHF Housing Finance Conference
2014 – visit us at stand 63
www.servicematters.uk.com
QUESTIONS &
ANSWERS
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Closing remarks from the Chair
Martin Hilditch,
Acting Editor, Inside Housing
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THANK YOU
The webinar is now closed
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