Lambeth Council has produced a report suggesting more than 15,000 Lambeth residents are fraudulently claiming 25% Single Persons Discount council tax out of the 50,000 . These people will be challenged and they suspect 90% will be proven fraudulent – 13,500!

Southwark Council has 53,145 residents claiming Single Persons Discount.

So how many Southwark residents are fraudulently claiming Single Persons Discount? If at the same ratio as Lambeth that would be around 16,000 – 10% = 14,400.

But as Lambeth recognise investigating such claims costs on average £1,000, taking a resident to a magistrates court £1,800.  This clearly shows that Council Tax is a very messy system and expensive to police. One day we’ll have a local income tax instead.

Lambeth is considering issuing £280 penalty fines using civil law on a “balance of probabilities” test. What should Southwark do to resolve this?

The first thing I’ve done is ask for Southwarks Audit & Governance Committee to have a similar report to Lambeth. Lets see where this takes us…