Parking machine attacks cost Sheffield Council £60,000

Whilst the amount of cash taken has been relatively small, it has cost the authority £60K to replace the damaged machines, according to the report for the audit and standards committee.

The attacks took place around Sheffield city centre in May 2017 and police have been unable to catch the offenders.

The report states: “Although the cash stolen in each case was only small in relation to the efforts taken by the criminals, the cost of replacing the machines is significant and amounted to over £60,000.

“Additional security measures were introduced by the council to try to prevent reoccurrence.

“Parking services are looking to replace many machines with new robust machines, to aid security and increase performance.

“They are also offering additional methods of payment such as card payments, which will reduce the value of cash in machines and therefore their vulnerability to thieves.”

The figure is part of a wider report into fraud at the council.

A total of 58 cases were reported to the authority in the 2017-18 financial year, an increase from 37 in the previous year, which the council claims is due to better reporting systems.

“The majority of cases investigated, related to members of staff,” the report states.

“With such a large workforce covering a large number of services there will always be a range of issues.

“The cases reported include false claims for services/benefits to theft and falsification of mileage claims.

“In all cases these were dealt with efficiently and, following investigations, appropriate sanctions were applied where the issues were found to be proven.

“This resulted in a number of dismissals. In some cases it was also found that there was no or insufficient evidence of fraud for action to be taken.”

The report will be discussed at a meeting of Sheffield City Council’s audit and standards committee at Sheffield Town Hall on Thursday, June 14.