Basingstoke & Deane Council is committed to ensuring that Housing & Council tax benefit is paid only to those people who have a true entitlement. The Council aims to ensure that those people who deliberately attempt to obtain benefits to which they are not entitled are prevented from doing so and in certain circumstances these individuals or groups will be considered for prosecution under the Social Security Administration Act (1992). In order to achieve this the Council has a highly trained investigation team who deal with all cases where abuse of the benefit system is suspected.
The Investigation Officers will normally carry out a great deal of their investigation and information gathering before visiting the person claiming benefit. In certain situations the person claiming benefit will be invited to attend an interview at the council offices, which will be tape-recorded.
The council will look to apply all of its available 
powers in the pursuit of those it believes have obtained money to which they were not entitled. However we are aware that not all cases where benefits are being received incorrectly are of a fraudulent nature. Therefore each case will be looked at on it's own merits.
Help Basingstoke & Deane crack down on benefit fraud.
If you want to contact the investigation team please phone: 01256 845365
All calls can be anonymous
In addition the Council operates the Verification Framework, which is a government initiative, designed to improve the accuracy of Housing Benefit payments. This means that the Council will only accept original documents when you submit your application for Housing and Council Tax Benefit
Please remember that if you are in receipt of benefit you must let the council know if any of your circumstances change.