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Council aims to claw back debt
MORE than £420,000 in housing benefit is still owed to a council, despite it having claimed back nearly £2m since 2000.
East Northamptonshire Council has published the figures in a report on its efforts to counter benefit fraud which will be presented to councillors today.
Between 2000 and 2007 the council paid out 64m in Government money as housing and council tax benefits.
During that time it has recovered more than 1.8m in overpayments but is still working on claiming back an outstanding amount of 423,531.
Council leader Andy Mercer said: "We are one of the best authorities at recovering overpaid benefits and collecting council tax and business rates.
"There is always money outstanding because there has to be a full investigation before we can take enforcement action against someone. There is always a delay between the overpayment going out and it being recovered.
"I've looked into the outstanding balance and it is mostly made up of recent cases, so it will take time to get that money back.
"We have a good record of recovering overpayments because we have a reputation for catching people which discourages others from not paying us back."
The latest figures show that the council has reclaimed more than 74 per cent of the overpayments made in 2005/06, more than 70 per cent of the overpayments made in 2006/07 and it has already claimed back nearly 53 per cent of those made in 2007/08.
But officers said the speed at which councils can claim back money has slowed because the law has been changed.
Previously, if a payment to a tenant was made direct to their landlord the council could ask the landlord to repay the money, but now it is the responsibility of the tenant to make the repayment and, as a result, the size of the instalments made to the council tend to be smaller.
If there is evidence that someone has committed benefit theft they face being prosecuted, being asked to pay a penalty, their benefit may be reduced or withdrawn and they will be asked to repay the overpaid benefit.
In the last year East Northamptonshire Council has taken out two successful prosecutions against people who have attempted to defraud it. It has another two prosecutions pending and has issued penalties in several other cases.
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