Councillors recommend that all staff should take anti-fraud training

They also would like to staff who have concerns about fraud happening to be able to speak to someone outside of the council.

At the Audit Committee meeting on Thursday, December 10, councillors were told that the Welsh Audit Office estimate fraud cost Welsh Government, the health service and local authorities anywhere between £100 million and £1 billion a year.

Powys County Council is one of the few authorities in Wales which still has a fraud investigation team.

Run by David Morris, Senior Manager for Income and Awards, he said the team had recovered £900,000 for the council in fraud, error and income savings.

But more could be done.

Mr Morris said: “All the policies have been done and they will be presented to the senior management team.

“Heads of service will be aware that these fraud policies are in place and all of the employees in the council will be required to sign they have read and will be aware that they are important.”

He added that the fraud team had put their own e-learning training module together that explains what staff need to guard against.

But the take up of the training had been low, with only around 50 of the workforce having completed it.

Mr Morris said: “We would like to see more prominence around the counter fraud training because at the moment it’s not mandatory.”

Councillor Michael Williams recommended the training be mandatory and was backed by Councillor Karen Laurie-Parry.

Committee Chairman, Councillor John Morris said that the proposal would be taken to the Chief Executive, Dr Caroline Turner and Council Leader, Cllr Rosemarie Harris.

The recommendation was unanimously approved by the committee.