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The biennial National Fraud Initiative revealed that public bodies in Wales were defrauded of £8million during 2018-2020 through a mix of fraudulent claims and overpayments.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has brought significant challenges for public sector organisations who continue to deliver services for individuals, communities and businesses in an extremely difficult time. So identifying £8 million in this latest NFI exercise is an important contribution to public service funding across Wales. It is more important than ever that organisations have sound governance and controls in place to help protect vital services from the risk of fraud at this time of crisis.”
– Auditor General, Adrian Crompton
The figure was a £2.7million increase on the 2016-18 findings. Audit Wales also suggests the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the public sector’s susceptibility to fraud due to quick turnaround times for payments.
£244.7million of fraudulent payments were uncovered across the UK as a whole, with the Welsh contribution of 3.3% of the total figure being lower than Wales’ population share.
