All organisations, public and private, face the risk of fraud. This will remain the case wherever people and scarce resources interact. Fraud, or even the perception of fraud, can have a serious impact on an organisation’s reputation and resources. It can stem from inside or outside the organisation and by its nature is deceitful, dishonest, and often hard to detect. Numerous Corruption and Crime Commission investigations highlight the risks organisations face.

However, there are practical steps organisations can take to reduce fraud risks and build their fraud resistance. These include creation of a strong ethical culture that sets the standard of behaviour for all staff, raising staff awareness of the risks, and implementing good practice controls to manage them.

This audit found that many local governments have not assessed their fraud risks, and do not have comprehensive fraud management plans and programs. Most could do more to educate their staff on integrity polices and controls to reinforce anti-fraud messages and consider fraud risks in their daily duties. Local governments also need to make sure they have clear and easy processes for people to report any fraud concerns.

It was pleasing to find that all the local governments we reviewed had some fraud controls in place and the staff my audit team dealt with during the audit were diligent. But, high staff turnover and work load makes implementing good fraud controls even more of a priority.

I would like to acknowledge the willingness of the entire sector to engage with our questionnaire. Nearly 80% of local governments responded, providing valuable information about fraud approaches across the local government sector.

I encourage all entities to use the principles highlighted in Appendix 2 to build on their existing structures and practices, in a way that best suits their needs.