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Spreadsheet to detect bushfire grants fraud ‘rudimentary’, inquiry hears


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 * Politics
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SPREADSHEET TO DETECT BUSHFIRE GRANTS FRAUD ‘RUDIMENTARY’, INQUIRY HEARS

BY LUCY CORMACK

December 9, 2021 — 5.22pm
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Service NSW is still using Excel spreadsheets as a fraud control measure despite
experts advising against the practice after more than $170 million of potential
fraud was identified across bushfire and COVID-19 grants programs.

An upper house inquiry into the administration of public grants on Thursday
heard evidence from consultants hired by the state government in May 2020. Their
contract was terminated in February.

Core Integrity was hired to give fraud investigation support to Service NSW
after police and the department began identifying potentially fraudulent claims
on the schemes, which handed out grants of $10,000.



Initial investigations identified potential fraud of up to $64 million in the
bushfire response program.Credit:Nick Moir

Their initial investigations identified possible fraud to the tune of $106
million for COVID-19 response grants and $64 million in the bushfire response
program. The latter figure has been revised down by the department to $61
million.



Among the most notorious examples was a series of bushfire grant applications
from an outlaw motorcycle gang in Newcastle. All applications shared a common
address and included the same image of a burnt out shed downloaded from Google.

The inquiry also heard the bushfire scheme was targeted by a number of different
groups or gangs in Lake Macquarie, the Hunter Valley and the North Coast.


RELATED ARTICLE

CRIME


NINE PEOPLE ARRESTED IN ALLEGED $700,000 BUSHFIRE GRANTS FRAUD PLOT

Core Integrity co-founder and former police investigator Darren Murphy told the
hearing his firm was initially contracted for five days to assess the
department’s data and look for “fraud typologies,” before the contract was
extended to nine months.

At the time, Mr Murphy said the only tool he was aware of Service NSW using to
identify fraud was a “rudimentary” Excel spreadsheet, which was used to manually
review anomalies.

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“Service NSW didn’t have what I call a protracted or complex investigation
capability and weren’t able to understand the complexities involved in ... an
investigation,” he said.

The agency has administered more than $11.3 billion in community grants
following the 2019-20 bushfires, NSW floods and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Upper house Greens MP and committee chair David Shoebridge asked if Excel was a
suitable tool for a state government to use when handing out billions of dollars
in grants.

“As a long-term solution, no it’s not,” Mr Murphy said. “They were relying on a
spreadsheet, that’s the salient point ... it should be better than that.”

Other examples of fraud saw individual applicants apply for the same grant 10 to
15 times. One case saw the same individual make 200 applications for a grant.



Mr Murphy said it was a complicated and a “quite protracted” process making a
case to the government to employ further resources and software to target fraud.

Before the Core Integrity contract with the government was terminated due to
funding issues, he said he gave advice to “throw more money and more resources
at this problem,” saying, “you don’t have enough”.

He said Service NSW did not act on recommendations for additional data tools and
funding and agreed there was no “competent or capable data visualisation” to
detect fraud when Core Integrity’s contract ended.

Mr Shoebridge said Service NSW in November submitted answers to the upper house
confirming they were still using Excel to analyse fraud data.

“It’s remarkable that more than 18 months after large-scale fraud was first
identified they are still muddling along with an Excel spreadsheet as one of
their primary fraud control measures,” he said.



A Service NSW spokeswoman said a range of technologies were in place to detect
and prevent fraud, since Core Integrity was engaged to help develop police
referral systems and fraud controls.

“Core Integrity fulfilled its obligations under the engagement and worked with
Service NSW to transition work to the newly established fraud and assessment
teams, which currently number 196 staff,” she said.

A further $102 million in suspected fraudulent payments have been prevented,
while $3.48 million in suspected fraudulent payments have been recovered, she
said.

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 * Government grants
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Lucy Cormack is a state political reporter with The Sydney Morning
Herald.Connect via Twitter or email.
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