Central Beds Council To Do Cross-Checks to Find Fraudulent Claims For Reduced Council Tax

A process to check that almost 35,000 Central Bedfordshire residents are entitled to receive a single person council tax discount begins this week. The 25 per cent discount, worth a minimum of £250 a year, is given to anyone who claims to be living in a property on their own – currently 34,700 people in the area. While most claims are genuine, the process will use data matching technology to check that information held by the council is accurate and up-to-date and recipients are still entitled to the discount. The review will use a two stage process to validate legitimate single person discount claims and identify and remove those being claimed in error or fraudulently. Central Bedfordshire Council has brought in technology specialists CapacityGRID to help establish whether people are genuinely living alone, by cross-referencing with other sources of household information such as, but not limited to, the electoral-roll registers and financial sector information. Anyone who