Hundreds of Kent criminals have avoided paying council tax and stolen blue badges to use to park their vehicles in disabled spaces, it has emerged.

A total of 368 fraud cases were investigated by Kent County Council's (KCC) governance and audit team from April 2019 to April 2020. This marks a 33% rise in the number of incidents recorded in the previous financial year.

The latest KCC report published to County Hall's committee last week shows that around 277 of the 368 cases related to the misuse of blue badges, including using stolen ones and those belonging to a person who has died.

Kent County Council's counter fraud manager, James Flannery, issued a stark warning about the rising number of fraud cases during a virtual public meeting earlier today.

Speaking to KCC's governance and audit committee, he said: "The threat is increasing and we have reviewed our resources to meet that threat moving forward."

An action plan is being created to tackle the growing case numbers. KCC financial fraud losses amounted to around £88,000 between April 2019 and April 2020. Despite this, around £216,000 of fraud loss was prevented by the team.

Over the corresponding 12-month period, a total of 160 warning letters were issued around the misuse of blue badges. This has resulted in blue badges being removed and on most occasions a penalty issued by the district council.

However, a KCC report recently published to the governance and audit committee stated: "Currently, some of the lower level cases are not being progressed due to insufficient resources."

For more serious cases, a criminal investigation is progressed through the courts. Most of these cases are referred by outside agencies, council staff and the public.

In addition, hundreds of people in Kent continue to evade council tax payments. However, the county's 12 district councils have managed to recover £753,000 of debt from April 2019 to April 2020.

Around 300 people were successfully traced through the local authority's debt recovery tracing tool after returning invoices as "gone away" while 72 properties were identified as being occupied using credit reference data.

Earlier today, Cllr David Brazier (Con), KCC's governance and audit committee chairman, has described the work carried out by Kent's counter fraud team as "fascinating".

A counter fraud action plan is being created to ensure more "proactive" measures are imposed to manage emerging risks, such as cyber crime through phishing and sextortion emails hitting all areas of KCC, including schools.

Specific alerts have been sent out across County Hall departments to counter the fraudulent risks migrating onto a more digital platform since the coronavirus lockdown.

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