Nine council homes in Renfrewshire have been taken back and 315 blue badges cancelled after a national data-matching exercise flagged fraud and errors, a report to councillors has revealed.

The figures come from Renfrewshire Council's part in the latest National Fraud Initiative, which compares records held by councils, the NHS, the Department for Work and Pensions and other public bodies to spot where something doesn't add up. They go before the council's Audit, Risk and Scrutiny Board on Monday (2 November).

£639,547 being clawed back

Council investigators and staff worked through 1,041 cases where fraud or error was confirmed, up from 756 in the previous round two years ago. Those cases turned up £639,547 in money that should not have been paid out or discounted, and the council is now recovering it through its usual debt recovery processes.

The council estimates the exercise has also prevented future and notional losses of more than £1.6 million, double the £810,056 recorded last time.

The biggest areas were:

  • Council tax discounts: 608 cases and £345,435 in overpayments, with a further £506,445 in estimated savings. Some of these involved second properties, which pushed up the amounts.
  • Council Tax Reduction: 84 cases and £215,375 in overpayments, almost four times the £55,711 found last time.
  • Care home payments: four cases worth £44,798, found through mortality checks that were brought back nationally last year.
  • Payments to suppliers: two cases worth £30,982.

Homes back for people who need them

Some of the most important results don't come with a cash figure. The checks led to nine council homes being recovered, where the named tenant had died or appeared to be living elsewhere, and 18 housing waiting list applications being amended or cancelled.

That's a big share of the national picture. A Scotland-wide report on the exercise says councils across the country recovered 17 properties in total, which means more than half came from Renfrewshire.

A further 315 blue badges were cancelled after being matched against death records, more than double the 152 cancelled last time. Cancelling a badge means it can't be reissued and can be taken back if it turns up in use during spot checks.

Why so many more cases?

The report says the rise is mainly down to HMRC data being included in the matching, which produced far more council tax matches. In all, the council received more than 21,000 matches this time, including 14,403 on council tax discounts alone, and processed more than 15,000 of them.

The council's external auditors rated its handling of the exercise green, or "entirely satisfactory", and the next round of data matching for 2026/27 is already being prepared.

Image: Renfrewshire House, Paisley. Photo: Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.