Parents' bid to shave time off the school run with bus pass fraud could have cost Bedford taxpayers up to £10,000

Parents wanted to avoid dropping child at school

An attempt by parents to save time on the school run could have cost Bedford borough taxpayers up to £10,000, a committee heard.

Bedford Borough Council’s Audit Committee (Tuesday, March 14) was presented with an update on the council’s Fraud Investigation Service – including a “notable case” of an attempted school bus pass fraud which was prevented by a “proactive referral” from the council’s school transport team.

Adam Goodyear, senior fraud investigation officer, said: “The cost of the transport was not believed to be the main motivation in this offence.

“But the cost of the local authority is calculated as £1,000 per student per year.

“False information was provided to support the subject’s route to work and meaning that they wouldn’t need to go out of their way to drop their children at school.

“But [instead] they could drop them at a local bus stop which would provide them with the free school transport, saving them 20 to 30 minutes each way on their daily routine.

“Because the matter was referred to us early – six months prior to the student starting school and becoming eligible – we managed to investigate the matter and resolve it, and remove the child’s eligibility prior to any loss being incurred by the council.”

Goodyear said the subject had two other children that would become eligible for school transport over the next few years.

“There’s a potential maximum value for this offence, if both children attended the same school for the full five year period, at £1,000 per child,” he said.

“There’s a potential maximum value of £10,000 in that offence.

“Early Intervention from the school transport team meant that we could avoid any loss in this matter,” he said.

Goodyear added that the council is working to systematise how it reviews for free school transport applications to identify any other issues.

The committee heard that invoices/bills generated by the fraud team, along with loss avoidance and an estimated future yield generated £1,813,631 for the council.