The allegations made about hundreds of thousands of British residents by the Audit Commission were condemned today as 'baseless and offensive' by campaigners for local government efficiency.
The allegations appear in a hitherto secret 'Audit Guide' produced for investigators working on National Fraud Initiative 'hit lists'. The Audit Commission demands that councils send it electronic data derived from council tax records and the full electoral register and processes these in order to produce lists of people it wants to see 'investigated' on the basis that they 'might not be entitled to their discount'.
Guidance published on the secure web site of the NFI asserts that the output indicates that the taxpayers is making two inconsistent claims at the same time, one in respect of the electoral register and one in respect of entitlement to a council tax discount. The same guidance asserts that there is 'no ambiguity' about the reason for entitlement to a discount.
A legal briefing carried out by the Audit Commission's own lawyers in February 2009 in response to complaints about legally inaccurate material published elsewhere by the Commission showed that these allegations were baseless. Despite this, the Commission has continued to publish legally inaccurate information in secret. It was only after the secrecy of the guidance was challenged through Freedom of Information procedures that it came into the public domain.
The Audit Commission appears to be claiming that the Audit Commission Act makes what it is doing lawful since it assists in the prevention and detection of crime. Campaigners point out that the Act includes a rudimentary definition of 'data matching', which is expanded in a statutory code which defines data matching as intended to identify 'inconsistencies'. Having acknowledged that this exercise does no such thing, the Commission has proposed altering the statutory code rather than altering its behaviour so that it complies with the Code. In the view of the Audit Commission, the code is optional, and so long as regard has been paid to it, its provision may be regarded as non compulsory.
The Under Secretary of State at the Dept of Communities has written to the Commission asserting a view that each time this exercise in mentioned it should be made clear that the output does not mean there is lack of entitlement to a discount, failure to provide information required by law or even any maladministration by the local council concerned.
It appears that the Commission has no intention of complying with this advice, and that it continues, unaccountable, to go its own sweet way, with badly briefed officers continuing to provide advice at odds with the law but in line with the misunderstandings which have underpinned this exercise from the start.
There is one potential ray of light on the horizon: Audit Commission staff have admitted that the legality of this exercise is still a live issue, pointing to a briefing by a QC paid by the AC and stating that the issues discussed are 'still live'. This means that even though the Commission is to be abolished, there will be the chance of legal action against whichever body assumes the NFI mantle and against local councils who provide the information when the law does provide windows of opportunity for them to decline on reasonable grounds.
