Fraudulent Covid grants totalling more than £1m claimed from Leeds City Council

A document, set to go before Leeds city councillors this week, shows dozens of cases of fraud have been identified by the council.

While most of the money has been recovered, more than £350,000 is still reported to be in the hands of fraudsters.

The statistics are set out in a report for the council’s Infrastructure Scrutiny Board, which is due to examine how the Covid discretionary grant scheme operated in Leeds.

The scheme was introduced during the pandemic and was designed to help businesses based in Leeds who could prove their incomes had reduced since the start of the pandemic.

Some 12,058 grants totalling a combined £22.3m have been administered by the council.

But the report said: “The identification and recovery of fraudulently claimed Business Support Grants is an ongoing process and work in this area is in conjunction with the council’s internal audit team, Government agencies, the Police and other local authorities.

“To date, 74 cases of fraud have been identified, totalling £1,078,393.29. Of this, £695,294.87 has been recovered to date; the majority from a national fraud perpetrated by organised crime.

“Recovery was initially instigated through the county court, but since the publication of revised guidelines from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), it is now via three requests for payment, after which the case is referred to BEIS, who determine what action will follow.”

The report claimed “all checks possible” were made when grant applications were received, but that visits to the companies were often impractical due to time constraints and various lockdowns.

It added: “Checks that were undertaken included those via specialist software which indicated that companies had a record of recent trading activity and were solvent.”

The discretionary grant was introduced by Leeds City Council for “businesses and charities whose income is still being affected by the coronavirus outbreak”.

According to the council’s website, businesses eligible for the grants must be based in Leeds, have been trading prior to November 2019 and have seen at least a 25 per cent drop in income during April and December 2021, compared to the same period in 2019.

Businesses needed to provide bank statements, a copy of the applicants’ personal ID, proof of accounts and proof of fixed costs.

The report will be discussed at a meeting of Leeds City Council’s Infrastructure Scrutiny Board on Thursday.

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