Council surveillance helps to catch benefit cheats

The council is able to use surveillance to tackle fraud and other crimes but must operate within the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). This is because surveillance is considered to interfere with human rights, specifically the right to a private and family life. Before using the investigatory powers the council must show that the outcome is in the public interest and that other means of obtaining evidence have been exhausted.

Typical methods of surveillance include covertly observing people and using hidden cameras to record their activities. The council is not allowed to use more intrusive methods such as listening devices.

The council's Overview and Scrutiny committee meeting in January discussed the latest information about the policies and procedures that must be followed before surveillance is authorised, and learned how often the powers have been used over the past four years. This came as proposals to tighten up the use of surveillance are going through parliament and could restrict councils to only using it with approval from a magistrate. 

Between April 2008 and March 2009 the council used surveillance on 10 occasions and between April 2009 and March 2010 it was only used once. In the last financial year the council had no need to use surveillance at all but still uncovered £191,112 of fraud. From April 2011 to January 2012 the figures show that surveillance has been considered necessary on two occasions.

Councillor Thomas Pursglove, Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee said: "What is clear from this report is that we have a very successful record in uncovering fraud. In one recent case surveillance helped us expose more than £12,000 of fraudulently claimed benefits, but the total uncovered since April last year, using a variety of different methods, is nearly £130,000. When we do use surveillance we have all the proper procedures in place, including appointing a senior officer to be responsible for authorisation and to check that all other, less intrusive, methods have been explored first.

"We can rely on information obtained from surveillance in court, so we need to make sure we follow the rules carefully otherwise the evidence could be excluded and the defendant could potentially take action against us for breach of human rights. The committee was satisfied we are continuing to use investigatory powers correctly, for the right reasons, and to get the best results for law-abiding taxpayers."