The council has pledged to tackle fraud after a report showed it lost more than £200,000 of public money last year.

There are "strong anti-fraud processes" in place and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council takes fraud "very seriously", a senior councillor has said.

It comes after The Gazette revealed the authority lost £216,848.36 of public funds in the 2020-21 financial year.

This newspaper also revealed that three fraudulent Covid-19 business grants were paid, totalling £45,000, whilst £121,342.35 was paid out in incorrect single person council tax discounts.

Now, a senior councillor has confirmed that the money lost to council tax is being recovered, whilst pledging to investigate cases of fraud.

Cllr John Izett also urged the public to report suspicions of fraud against the council to them.

The cabinet member for finance and major projects, Cllr John Izett, said: “We take fraud and attempted fraud against the public purse very seriously and work hard, alongside other agencies, to investigate this.

“We have strong anti-fraud processes in place to prevent fraud being committed. However, given the nature of fraud, there will always be a risk of it occurring so part of our work is actively searching for this and taking appropriate action to recover these funds and prevent further losses.

“As part of our work last year, we identified £45,000 in incorrectly paid claims for funding as part of over £46 million of COVID business support distributed to businesses across the borough since March 2020.

“We were also able to identify £121,342.35 in incorrect claims for council tax single person discount, from over almost £8.5 million of discount applied, as part of the National Fraud Initiative data matching exercise, with these amounts being recovered.

“In addition to our work to prevent and uncover fraud, we also encourage members of the public to report any suspicions they have of fraud against the council. To report any suspicions, please call the fraud hotline on 0800 525927 or email fraudinvestigators@basingstoke.gov.uk.”

The findings of the report, generated on a biannual basis and reported by The Gazette last week, has drawn criticism from the TaxPayers' Alliance, which said that councils "must ramp up efforts" to crack down on fraud.

The centre-right think tank's digital campaign manager, Joe Ventre, said: "Fraud is always a twofold blow for hard-working taxpayers.

"Not only is their money wasted, but residents who play by the rules will then be expected to pick up the tab in the form of higher rates.

"Councils must ramp up efforts to crack down on fraudsters and ease the burden on those who pay their fair share."

You can read The Gazette's full exclusive report here.