Council Tax Credits - Freedom of information requests

Council Tax Credits

509

18/05/2022

FOI

In terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I hereby request a list of unclaimed council tax credit balances. Please note I am not asking for business rates credits.Please can this information be provided to me in an Excel Spreadsheet, including the following fields:* Ratepayer name* Property Address
* Billing Authority Reference
* Amount of credit
* The period or financial year of the credit
I appreciate that properties where the ratepayer is an individual would be excluded from my request. In such cases, please provide the remaining information with the Ratepayer either blank or listed as 'individual'

I confirm we hold the information you have requested. After full consideration we have taken the decision to withhold under S35(1)(a) of FOI(S)A 2002 - prevention or detection of crime.
This section of the Act provides an exemption where prejudice could be caused to allow potential fraudsters to use the information to identify persons or business entities entitled to claim credits on their accounts. Once such a person or business had been identified and this information available in the public domain, there would be a number of avenues open to the fraudsters to seek to obtain funds.

Please find below our findings after carrying out the public interest test:
Factors in favour of disclosure
* Withholding the information could be perceived as attempting to retain monies that belong to the public.
* To be open and transparent about our use of public funds.
* To provide some transparency regarding the records we hold in respect of the administration of Council Tax. This could be of interest to the minority of people who are due a refund, but have not received this contrary to our routine administration of Council Tax records.
Factors in favour of withholding
* Ensuring that monies from the public purse, such as credits on Council Tax accounts, are not fraudulently claimed and also a public interest in not making it easier for fraud to be committed.
* Our current verification procedure for refund claims is simple and cost effective. Disclosure of the requested information would result in additional verification processes needing to be implemented, at additional cost to the public which appears disproportionate to the benefits that would accrue from disclosure. The additional verification procedures would also be likely to slow the verification process, resulting in detriment to the genuine payer which would be contrary to the public interest.
* In relation to any new verification processes that might be needed, these would be likely to require the production of additional documents by those claiming a refund which would place a new administrative burden on the majority of those legitimate customers that does not currently exist. This would be compounded by the fact that the level of scrutiny of those documents would be higher than at present, given the increased suspicion that some of the claims (and associated documents) might well be fraudulent. The result would be that a new verification process would be likely to slow the rate at which credit balance claims could be considered and refunded, causing delay in all refunds and the likelihood of complaints, which would further burden our limited resources.
* Disclosure of the requested information would result in the need to implement disproportionate steps and additional expense to the public purse to counter an increased fraud risk that does not exist at present.
The cost consequences of a successful fraudulent claim would:
* have incurred the cost of paying out to the fraudster;
* remain liable to the legitimate Council Tax payer for an equivalent amount, raising the prospect of paying out twice; and
* be faced with the cost (legal and incurrence of internal management time) of seeking to recover the funds wrongly paid to the fraudster.
It would not be in the public interest to expose it to such potential costs and expenses, given that they would be funded from the public purse.
Therefore, we consider the greater public interest lies in not providing the information. In coming to that conclusion, the public interest in providing the information has been carefully weighed against any prejudice to the public interest that might arise from withholding the information; in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.