Highland Council's Fraud Awareness Training System Success

3rd September 2006

An E-learning system developed by The Highland Council to train staff on Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit fraud awareness is such a success that it is now being used by 270 other local authorities across the UK.

The training package entitled "Focus on Fraud Awareness" makes the process of delivering quality training to a large number of front-line staff spread across a large geographical area both effective and efficient. All 110 front-line staff located in 37 Service Points throughout Highland have completed this course.

The Highland Council's Client and Control Manager within the Finance Service, Allan Gunn said: "As The Highland Council covers a geographical area larger than Wales, the challenge was for us to create an effective alternative to class-room Fraud Awareness training for our staff. We found that E-Learning was the answer and the result we have
is a high quality product that has been very well received both in Highland and the UK."

The Council received national funding from the Department For Work And Pensions to develop the system which is supported by systems provider Meritec Limited and the Council's IT partner Fujitsu Services.

As well as covering all topics relating to fraud, the product also allows for some personalisation to reflect local priorities. It also includes details of the DWP web site to remind authorities where Fraud Performance Management Information on all UK authorities can be easily obtained.

Staff responsible for developing the training system have been invited to attend a number of conferences across the UK to promote the project including the IRRV National Conference in October and the IRRV Benefits Conference in February, 2007.