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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 17 August 2025
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Displaying 1619 contributions

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Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

I have two slightly random questions. With the advancement of the ability to read and calculate data using artificial intelligence, have you seen much of a move towards AI over the past five years?

We have often talked about that side of audit and the potential benefits of using AI to speed up processes and improve the quality of analysis—of course, we have also talked about the potential for effectively putting nice, well-paid auditors out of work. Are there any potential advantages to the further use of AI in the work that you do with regard to identifying large amounts of data from nearly 120 public bodies, all of which submit data in different forms and formats, using different technologies?

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

It is not always fraudulent activity that you flag up. For example, I presume that bodies that participate in the NFI submit data sets and your analysis flag up issues such as duplicate payments. The report says that around £750,000-worth of duplicate creditor payments were identified. Do you know how much of that was erroneous, or what number of payments were identified as duplicate matches of data but were actually valid? For example, as you say, you could buy a £2,000 laptop from a creditor and the next day do exactly the same thing again. That would perhaps be flagged as an erroneous payment and potential fraud, but it could be a valid payment made by a body. What work do you do thereafter to match or marry up the value in that data identification with what happened next or the follow-up activity?

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

That would be good—thank you.

I have two quick questions. Housing benefits and pensions are quite big pieces of work as part of the initiative. I perhaps did not understand some of the terminology, as there is a lot of jargon in the report. Talk me through what it means when we are told that the average individual value of overpayments for housing benefit rose from just over £2,000 to £6,500 in a short period. Is that to do with the value of payments or with the level of potential fraud?

I appreciate that, since 2018, there has been a marked shift from a bespoke housing benefit payment, for example, to universal credit, which has perhaps mopped up some of the more individual benefits. However, I could not quite get my head around the situation with housing benefit fraud, such as whether you have identified a rise or decline.

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

If fraudulent housing benefit claims are picked up through the work that you do, do you tell the DWP or the local authority about that?

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

They all do.

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

Thank you, convener, and good morning, gentlemen. I want to follow up a couple of areas in your report that are of interest to me, but I have an overarching question first, because I want to get my head around the process. Audit Scotland undertakes the work of the NFI in Scotland. Is that on behalf of the Public Sector Fraud Authority or are you contracted by the authority? What is your relationship to the body that oversees the UK-wide NFI?

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

I am trying to get my head around the flow. If you are, say, a Scottish local council, do you pay a fee to participate in the exercise?

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

I will come on to an example in a second, particularly with regard to housing benefit, but what about any benefits that are recouped? Perhaps I should call them “savings”, given that that is what you are calling them—although I have to say that what you identify as savings seem to be what I would identify as the value of fraud. Nevertheless, we will call them savings for now. The potential upside of councils participating in the initiative is the identification of these so-called savings, but there is no cost or charge to them. Is that correct?

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

In that same paragraph, you say that savings—to use that term—have increased from around £15 million to more than £21 million in a short space of time. By default, there is an increase in the value of the activity, but that does not necessarily mean that there is an increase in fraudulent activity. It is just about the value.

Public Audit Committee

“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2024”

Meeting date: 26 September 2024

Jamie Greene

I guess that where I am heading with all this is that what strikes me about the whole conversation this morning is that perhaps that is where there is a failing in the process. Dealing with that might help you to deal with the issue that you mention in your key messages and to move from saying that it is not clear whether fraud has increased to a position where you can take a more definitive view. Having done the work that identifies the savings and fed all that back to the bodies involved, you could let them do their thing in identifying what is fraud, what is valid and what is erroneous and where there are systems issues or manual issues, and then they could feed that back to you. You could then insert another section in future reports that says, “Having identified the savings, this is what we think the outcomes were.”

I appreciate that that would be an extra piece of work for you and that it might even be outside your statutory requirements, but would that extra piece of analysis give people more confidence in the value of the work that you do? Do you see where I am going?