Issues

Planning: a high corruption risk

building plans The Department of the Environment needs to build “a strong anti-fraud culture” among planners before planning policy is transferred to the new councils, the Northern Ireland Audit Office has stated.

The transfer is due to take place in April 2015 and the department is currently considering the Audit Office report’s recommendations.

“Planning is one area within the public sector where there is a particularly high risk of fraud and corruption,” Auditor General Kieran Donnelly stated.

“It is not enough to establish controls to combat these risks,” Donnelly added. Whistleblowing about corrupt payments, he emphasised, plays an important role in combating fraud. However, information on how to report fraud was “not displayed prominently to the public” on www.doeni.gov.uk

The DoE’s assessment that the risk of fraud is low is “optimistic given the inherent risks in planning”. Its counter-fraud policies and strategies are likewise “generic and take little or no account of the specific nature of planning work.”

The fraud detection strategy selected applications at random. Instead, it should examine them on the basis of intelligence about suspected corruption and fraud. The Audit Office’s conclusions reflect those of the Public Accounts Committee report in 2010: “There is no other part of the public sector which is more open to the possibility of conflicts of interest, collusion and impropriety.”

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