1. Lewisham NRPF & the five Boroughs DCLG counter fraud project

2. No recourse to public funds’ is an immigration condition applied to people entering the UK as a condition of their entry Applies to individuals such as visitors, overseas students, people who seek to remain on the basis of marriage, over- stayers and illegal entrants Different time limits apply for those who still have a valid visa Destitution support for families comes under S17 Children Act and for vulnerable adults, Part One Care Act NRPF

3. Public Funds Public Funds are: Income Support Universal Credit & PIP Housing BenefitLocal Welfare Schemes Council Tax SupportPension Credit Social Fund PaymentsChild Tax Credit Severe Disablement AllowanceWorking Tax Credit DLA Attendance Allowance Carers’ Allowance Child Benefit Income based JSA/ESA Housing provided by local authorities

4. Scale of Demand Difficult to gauge where there is no specialist team and cost spread across various budget headings Spikes in spend often identified long after expenditure incurred Lewisham – original case profile was 187 NRPF families. Actual 331 Lack of evidence based investigation creates climate for potential fraud

5. DCLG Bid Funding announced in July 2014 - successful bids notified end Nov 2014. Proposals required to: Have savings which exceed initial funding Be innovative and integrated detection, prevention and deterrence Have a particular focus on partnership proposals

6. NRPF context across the five boroughs In general there is a high degree of similarity in the profile of applicants for support – the vast majority are families with Nigerian or Jamaican nationality. Families have typically been present in the UK for a number of years before their presentation to the authority for support. Over 90% have no social care needs (other than relating to those relating to finances and housing) which trigger their presentation. With the exception of Bromley (where caseloads are much lower), all have had in excess of 200 families and adults being supported 2012-2014. Whilst the profile is generally the same there are some variations – Southwark has much higher number of single adults being supported. Across the five boroughs, based on an average unit cost of c.£25k per annum per family, the estimated annual cost for SE London was £22m + In addition to financial demands, all boroughs identified that managing NRPF cases was creating significant service pressure in CYP with social work teams having to balance workloads between traditional child protection work and growing requirements to respond to claims of destitution. All boroughs had predicted a growth at the scale identified in Lewisham over the next five years. At this scale of growth, NRPF spend in SE London would be in excess of £70m per annum by 2018. In Lewisham projected spend likely to be in excess of £11m by 2016 Often service approaches have ‘emerged’ as a result of unanticipated rises in demand and that authorities needed to ‘design’ a future which responded to the authorities statutory responsibilities, developed partnership working and ensured that future demand could be better predicted and planned for.

7. Our bid Key objectives: Implement a standardised assessment approach embedding fraud prevention skills in front-line decision making Develop a joint technological platform which enables a shared approach to fraud detection and prevention. Expected outcomes: Reduction in fraudulent applications accepted. Identifying current fraudulent cases. Overall reduction in spend. Funding requested: £585k over 2 years Anticipated savings across five boroughs: £5m per annum

8. Key Elements Appointment of specialist fraud officer to co- ordinate collection of fraud data, analyse returns & prepare reports for project board Codification of various fraud offences applied by all 5 boroughs Building of a database to identify multiple claims, transference of a claim from one borough to another and likely ‘scams’

9. Current Results As of February 2016 £1.2m involving misrepresentation most usually involving work, income above that required for 3 months or more or multiple bank accounts £7.3m involving failure to disclose usually involving not being destitute, being present in another borough or excluded from support

10. But also – As well as specific counter fraud objectives, funding is a catalyst for… Broadly similar assessment processes but tailored to local circumstances in order to improve consistency across borders. Developing a single assessment and case management system which can be used to more effectively share information on cases and enable more strategic identification of trends which can be used locally and nationally as a planning tool. Joint approaches to partnership working with the Home Office – including embedded workers and dedicated decision makers Improved front-line co-operation (i.e. which borough should assess) and sharing of intelligence Redressing the imbalance in the narrative which has historically failed to recognise fraud as an issue amongst this group

11. Learning so far and plans for the future  Across all boroughs the number families identified as being eligible and in need of our support had reduced following the implementation of evidentially led and focused initial assessments. In Lewisham acceptance rates are now just above 7%. 14% currently require more detailed fraud investigation (up from 11% during 2014).  Having dedicated teams enables the authority to develop appropriate skills and ensure that trends are identified and responded to more quickly (this is a rapidly changing area). This structure has also enabled us to develop working relationships with other boroughs more easily.  Embedded Home Office workers have been a critical part of the approaches in Lewisham and in Southwark (partly given the level of our caseload). Ongoing active partnership will be critical.  System development work still ongoing – we hope to be able to roll out more widely to other boroughs  Growing awareness that a more targeted approach like this is needed (challenging traditional s17 approaches). Five borough partnership leading work across authorities interested in putting in place evidentially led processes for dedicated teams – at least 14 LA visits seeking to put in place similar teams.