I have a client who has received a letter offering her a formal caution for benefit fraud (CTB). The letter states that if she accepts the local authority will notify her employing department.

I would just like to know whether this is normal practice, for a claimant's mployer to be notified?

Any help would be grateful....

What work does she do? Who is she employed by?

I have not come across this before but she does need to be aware that accepting the caution is basically an admission of guilt, possibly of an offence involving dishonesty. Depending on the nature of her employment it could create serious problems e.g. if she was a solicitor, accountant, worked in a bank, law enforcement etc.

She is an occupational therapist, employed by the local authority, so she does work with vulnerable people. The regulatory body of occupational therapists requires its members to have a suitable 'character', and they require disclosure of criminal convictions and cautions.

However, i understood that a formal caution for CTB fraud would be held by the local authority, and is not a police/criminal matter???

Obviously if she accepts the caution, and her employer is informed, they will have to assess whether the caution is relevant to her position, etc, but i just wasnt sure if this was the norm with benefit fraud cautions.

Do you know specifically which offence she is accused of? One of the commonly used benefit offences involves dishonesty, the other does not, clearly the difference here could be significant.

I'm still not sure about the LA's power inform the employer. You could ask the LA to state what legal provision they are relying on, rememebr that a local authority can not do anything unless it has the legal power to do so. At the end of the day though, if her employment contract requires full disclosure anyway, isnt this a bit academic?

Is she in a union? She might be entitled to free legal advice if she is.

"However, i understood that a formal caution for CTB fraud would be held by the local authority, and is not a police/criminal matter???"

i was given the same information by a local fraud team member, so i cannot see that they would take that action if she had an external employer - it would breach her data protection rights.

the action might be taken under internal policy or rules - i think most LAs have 'fraud' policies, and then there are 'staff rules' etc... (i'm guessing, and don't know, btw...)

there may be a conflict with these and individuals' data protection rights, resulting in LA employees being treated more detrimentally than non-employees - i first came across this with data matching - payroll information was matched with benefit claims - an employee giving her parents address as her contact address to her personnel dept was assumed to be an undeclared non-dep on their HB claim... turned into a bit of a nightmare... the Audit Commission consults with the Information Commissioner, and gives a lot of back-up to LA's, even though LA data controllers in different departments are quite separate...the magic word 'fraud' ...unfortunately, in this case a complaint to the Information Commissioner wasn't followed through, so the issues weren't tested, and haven't been so far afaik - here's an interesting link -
http://www.informationtribunal.gov.uk/ourDecisions.htm

apologies if this is a red herring...

thanks for your replies. think i may need to contact the local authority.

Thought I should chip in to this being a paid up member of the fraud squad! Have to say never heard of an LA telling an employer that a caution had been issued, as SLloyd says they are not usually put on the PNC.

HOWEVER Cautions as such are not a centralized sanction, they are related to a Home Office circular which states that no 'Prosecuting Authority' is required to prosecute all offenders. Therefore cautions and cautioning policies are put in place by the individual LAs and can differ greatly. Some LAs do notify the PNC and if the Police are satisfied that an offence has been committed will record it as such. In the same way it is possible that an LA may include as part of their policy, if a offender in a postion of trust (i.e. special constable, council employee etc) agrees a caution they may notify the employer. This would be a condition of signing the caution. It is of note that an LA would not offer a caution unless they were confident that if refused they could prosecute and your clients 'dirty washing' would certainly then be aired in public.

Finally, as SLloyd says when signing the caution your client is agreeing she has committed and offence (although 112 offences do not include dishonesty). If she feels that she has not committed an offence she should not sign, if at this stage I would seriously consider getting legal advice.

Does she work for a unitary authority with both housing benefit and social care responsibilities? If so may come under overarching internal policy.

Sorry, think that in my second post I missed the fact that she diretly employed by the LA. Hmmmm. I suppose the LA could make it a condition of the caution as Owen says but I'm still a bit uncomforatble with it. Notwithstading that she may ultimatlye give consent for the info to be shared it is starting to smell like a data protection issue. DPA principles can be "broken" if for the detection and prevention of crime. What crime are the LA preventing or detecting by sharing hte info with the other department? Absolutley none (IMHO). I think she needs legal advice asap and certainly before she makes any decision on the caution. She also needs to examine her employment contract very carefully along with any professional rules or conduct issues for OT's.

It might be worth posting up for discussion the details of, what I assume, is some form of overpayment. However, please be careful what info you post here, the clients ID could probably be established, or at least narrowed down, by the employing department from the info you have alredy given.

A caution may show up on an enhanced CRB check which are standard pre-employment checks for the helping professions and as she works as an OT, this could be a major problem. And failure by her to notify the employer may jeopardise her existing employment when it eventually comes to light (eg it comes to light when a prospective new employer tells her existing employer or when she renews her professional registration).

I agree that she needs competent legal advice to cover both the criminal and benefit law issues BEFORE she does anything else.

SLloyd

"One of the commonly used benefit offences involves dishonesty, the other does not,"

I'm probably being dim, but would appreciate it if you could elaborate on what you are thinking of here. I know its a bit of a tangent to this thread, but it may be helpful in other directions.

SSAA - Section 112s are 'knowingly' making false statements or failing to notify a change of circs whereas Section 111s are 'dishonestly' making false statements or failing to notify a change of circs (these are the most commonly used Social Security Offences). 112s are summary offences whereas 111s are either-way.

Hope that helps

Just as OwenK says! And here is a link to SSAA'92:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/docs/lawvols/bluevol/pdf/a1_1801.pdf

Joining this a bit late sorry - If the case was an NFI referral (National Fraud Initiative) then if any sanction action is taken then the employer has to be informed under the NFI guidelines that came with all the referrals ! Either that or the fact that the LA is her employer so in effect (assuming the offence was comitted etc) she has commited an offence against the employer and if I remember right Newcastle (I am presuming it is Newcastle City Council) used to be quite strict internally when this sort of stuff came up - their overall internal policy used to be controlled by internal audit and the fraud section had no choice, if it was an LA employer, to inform the audit section. However, in my ecperience of working at Newcastle, internal audit very rarely took any further action.
Hope this helps

Thanks for your replies. It isnt Newcastle, but thats handy to know. The client has been advised appropriately, and referred to a solicitor for advice on the criminal side of things.

Thanks.