Bexley Council has seen an increase in fraud reports, leading to greater savings for the borough, according to a recent meeting of the General Purposes and Audit Committee.
The committee convened on 30 July 2025, to discuss a range of issues, including internal audit and counter fraud activity, treasury management, and pension benefits. The agenda for the meeting is available online.
Counter Fraud Efforts
The committee received an update on counter fraud activity from 1 March to 9 July 2025, detailed in the Internal Audit and Counter Fraud Progress Report. The Counter Fraud team primarily receives reports of potential frauds through the biennial National Fraud Initiative and reports from the public, council employees, and other organisations.
During the reporting period, the Counter Fraud Team logged four new cases:
- Two potential Blue Badge frauds
- Two potential housing frauds
Eighty-eight fraud cases were closed during the same period, including:
- 30 Blue Badge cases, with 21 cases of proven fraud.
- 16 single person discount (council tax) cases, with no fraud found.
- 35 potential housing and homelessness cases, with seven cases of proven fraud.
These efforts resulted in actual or notional savings totalling £137,580 for the period from 1 March to 9 July 2025.
Internal Audit
The committee also received an update on internal audit activity from 18 March 2025, to 9 July 2025. The internal audit work is being carried out by an in-house team, including a Head of Assurance and two contracted internal auditors. One report has been issued in final form regarding the management of actual and potential data breaches. Six audits have been issued in draft form, regarding:
- Key financial systems: Business / Non-Domestic Rates Collection
- H&S policy audit
- Transparency Code Compliance
- Complaints
- Employees Gifts and Hospitality
- Emergency Housing Landlord Health and Safety Compliance
The internal audit report on data breaches identified several risk areas and made recommendations for improvement. The high-risk findings included the need to establish operational governance and oversight groups, ensure timely reporting of breaches to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) within the 72-hour statutory requirement, and develop a numeric scoring system for breach severity and harm to data subjects. The Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) has agreed to set up an Oversight Group. To address timely reporting, the council will use various communication channels to educate staff. A review and update of the Data Breach Incident Reporting Procedures will incorporate the numeric scoring system. The report identified 3 high, 13 medium and 5 low risk issues.
Key priorities and focus areas of the updated internal audit plan for 2025/26 include safeguarding vulnerable adults, reviewing deputyship and appointee management, sexual health services, the BexleyCo Scheme Appraisal, direct payments, a rolling programme of school audits, Prevent Duty Compliance, the Supporting Families Grant, the Transformation Programme, key financial systems, valuation of properties for disposal, treasury management, human resources, IT asset management, cyber security, management of data subject access requests, electoral registration and photo ID, counter party risk, compliance of monitoring of building based statutory testing, asset investment programme, employer health and safety duties, management of Freedom of Information Requests, risk management, elected members' private interests, homelessness duties, flood risk management, food waste collections, registrars and trading standards. The effectiveness of the plan will be measured through the annual internal audit opinion, which concludes on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the council's framework of governance, risk management, and control.
Treasury Management
The committee noted the treasury management activities and performance against targets for the financial year 2024/25, as detailed in the Bexley Outturn 2024-25 Final. The council's treasury management debt and cash investment position is managed to ensure adequate liquidity for revenue and capital expenditure, security of capital for investments and to manage risks within all treasury management activities.
During the 2024/25 financial year, the council made total debt repayments of £2.731 million and incurred interest payments totalling £7.586 million on its existing loan portfolio. The council received £2.712m treasury income from its investments. Investment returns were elevated at the start of the financial year as the Bank Rate was at a peak of 5.25% in April 2024. As the Bank Rate was cut in August 2024 and November 2024, MMF returns steadily decreased.
Other Business
The committee also:
- Noted a report describing the grounds on which early release of pension benefits can be made. During the 2024/25 financial year one employee left the council due to redundancy with entitlement to the release of Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) benefits. One employee left as a result of ill health retirement and LGPS benefits were also released for six individuals requesting flexible retirement.
- Reviewed and approved the updated internal audit plan for 2025/26. The plan had been revised to align further to the Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS). The updated Internal Audit Plan is available online.
