Anti-fraud, bribery and corruption security is being beefed up by the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) as it begins to roll out multi-million pound projects.
A report being considered by audit committee members today (Tuesday, June 25) outlines a new strategy to combat potential financial crimes, including money laundering and expenses fiddling by employees and third parties.
It comes just over a week after the Weca Committee, comprising the leaders of Bristol city, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset councils, agreed a raft of huge spending on transport, infrastructure and skills at Bath's Guildhall.
The report says: "Compared to the operations of a unitary council, the risk of fraud occurring through Weca's activities is relatively low (not being responsible for multiple front-facing public services).
"However, it is envisaged that Weca will progress over the coming months to be much more involved in the client management and delivery of multi-million pound capital projects.
"As such, it is important to have a robust and transparent counter-fraud strategy in place."
The strategy document says Weca's leadership team "recognise the threats of fraud and corruption and the resulting harm to the citizens of the West of England".
"For that reason, fraud, bribery and corruption against the authority will not be tolerated and all such occurrences will be investigated," it says.
"Every pound should be invested in delivery of high quality services and programmes for local communities and business, and actively identifying fraud and embedding a counter-fraud culture is a priority."
But the papers add: "The ultimate aim is to prevent fraud at the outset.
"However, despite our best attempts determined fraudsters may succeed.
"Disciplinary, civil and criminal sanctions will be used, as appropriate to each case, in punishing fraud and recovering losses.
"Fraud, bribery, corruption and theft by members or staff will be regarded as gross misconduct.
"Disciplinary action will be taken against staff. Allegations of members' misconduct will be referred to the monitoring officer for investigation and, should the allegation warrant, further action, including referral to the police."
The report lists a number of "significant known risks", broken down into categories.
Under "procurement", threats include tendering issues, double invoicing, price-fixing, bid rigging, cartels and inflated claims by consultants, with prevention measures such as monitoring patterns of suppliers' spending to combat them.
There are also risks of internal fraud, such as staff diverting cash to a personal account, accepting bribes, gifts and hospitality and stealing property to sell on for personal gain.
To counter that, the strategy suggests "proper and adequate vetting, and strong management-led anti-fraud culture".
Emerging threats of fraud include cyber crime, money laundering, insurance claim scams and significant new expenditure on grants and commissioned services from Weca's adult education budget.
