Fraud at A4e leads to jail terms
2 April 2015
Work programme provider A4e has a “zero tolerance policy towards fraud”, and set aside money to repay money falsely claimed, its group chief executive Andrew Dutton said in a statement this week.
Thu, 2 Apr 2015
Work programme provider A4e has a “zero tolerance policy towards fraud”, and set aside money to repay money falsely claimed, its group chief executive Andrew Dutton said in a statement this week.
His comment followed the conviction of former A4e staff for a fraud which saw them falsely claim almost £300k.
The BBC reported earlier this week the former employees made up files, forged signatures and falsely claimed they had helped people find jobs, thereby enabling them to hit targets and gain government bonuses.
The company ran a lone parent mentoring programme between 2008 and 2011, a £1.3m contract that covered Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
It was also paid £10.5k a month to implement the programme and received payments for each person it helped gain employment.
Prosecutor Sarah Wood said between them the accused created 167 false claims which cost the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), which had contracted A4e to carry out the work, £288,595.
In his statement, Dutton said the company, when it learned of the fraud in 2010, set aside money to cover the cost of the crime.
“A4e long ago set aside the money to pay back the DWP the amount it received as a result of the unsubstantiated claims and we have ensured that the taxpayer will have lost nothing from the conduct of the people involved,” he said.
Sentencing at Reading Crown Court, Judge Angela Morris said there had been a “systematic practice” of compiling bogus files over a “considerable period of time”.
She described the behaviour as “appallingly cavalier”.
Dutton said that since learning of the fraud, the company “has made far-reaching improvements to its systems and controls since the events of four years ago and these make it highly unlikely that this kind of incident could happen again”.
He said the company had a “robust claims validation process” that ensured job outcomes claims were verified independently by a central team.
The process was not applied to the contract in question, which was administered at a regional level and had paper-based administrative and claims processes, “because it was viewed, at the time, as being unique and subject to different processes by necessity”, the statement said.
“As our own investigation found, this was a weakness that allowed a group of people to act dishonestly, but was wholly untypical of A4e’s general processes.
“Comprehensive audits by the DWP and the Skills Funding Agency have already confirmed there was no evidence of fraud in contracts they currently hold with us.”
According to the BBC, the defendants in the case were:
It was not clear whether all were employed by A4e.
Work programme provider A4e has a “zero tolerance policy towards fraud”, and set aside money to repay money falsely claimed, its group chief executive Andrew Dutton said in a statement this week.
His comment followed the conviction of former A4e staff for a fraud which saw them falsely claim almost £300k.
The BBC reported earlier this week the former employees made up files, forged signatures and falsely claimed they had helped people find jobs, thereby enabling them to hit targets and gain government bonuses.
The company ran a lone parent mentoring programme between 2008 and 2011, a £1.3m contract that covered Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
It was also paid £10.5k a month to implement the programme and received payments for each person it helped gain employment.
Prosecutor Sarah Wood said between them the accused created 167 false claims which cost the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), which had contracted A4e to carry out the work, £288,595.
In his statement, Dutton said the company, when it learned of the fraud in 2010, set aside money to cover the cost of the crime.
“A4e long ago set aside the money to pay back the DWP the amount it received as a result of the unsubstantiated claims and we have ensured that the taxpayer will have lost nothing from the conduct of the people involved,” he said.
Sentencing at Reading Crown Court, Judge Angela Morris said there had been a “systematic practice” of compiling bogus files over a “considerable period of time”.
She described the behaviour as “appallingly cavalier”.
Dutton said that since learning of the fraud, the company “has made far-reaching improvements to its systems and controls since the events of four years ago and these make it highly unlikely that this kind of incident could happen again”.
He said the company had a “robust claims validation process” that ensured job outcomes claims were verified independently by a central team.
The process was not applied to the contract in question, which was administered at a regional level and had paper-based administrative and claims processes, “because it was viewed, at the time, as being unique and subject to different processes by necessity”, the statement said.
“As our own investigation found, this was a weakness that allowed a group of people to act dishonestly, but was wholly untypical of A4e’s general processes.
“Comprehensive audits by the DWP and the Skills Funding Agency have already confirmed there was no evidence of fraud in contracts they currently hold with us.”
According to the BBC, the defendants in the case were:
- Charles McDonald – pleaded guilty to six counts of forgery and one of conspiracy to commit forgery, sentenced to 40 months in prison;
- Julie Grimes – pleaded guilty to nine counts of forgery, sentenced to 26 months in prison;
- Nikki Foster – pleaded guilty to nine counts of forgery, jailed for 22 months;
- Ines Cano-Uribe – found guilty of one count of forgery and one of conspiracy to commit forgery, jailed for 18 months;
- Dean Lloyd – pleaded guilty to 13 counts of forgery, jailed for 15 months;
- Bindiya Dholiwar – pleaded guilty to seven counts of forgery, jailed for 15 months;
- Zabar Khalil – found guilty of one count of forgery, given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years;
- Matthew Hannigan-Train – found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit forgery, given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years;
- Hayley Wilson – found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit forgery, given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years;
- Aditi Singh – pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery and one count of possessing items to commit fraud, received a 10-month sentence, suspended for two years.
It was not clear whether all were employed by A4e.
