YORK'S counter fraud team stopped 15 ineligible Covid-19 grant payments - saving £131,000.

And the experts also prevented £21,000 of incorrect payments to micro businesses.

People who make a clear attempt to commit fraud while applying for government support grants in York will be prosecuted, Max Thomas from assurance company Veritau said.

According to a council report, four people have received a formal warning about their covid grant applications and there are a further nine cases under review. In some cases the council had to claw back the money after it was paid out.

Mr Thomas told councillors: "If we identify evidence that there has been fraud we will always consider whether it's appropriate to prosecute.

"In some of these cases we do recognise that the process was done very quickly and people were, in some cases, quite confused about what they could and couldn't claim.

"There was a certain degree of error but there have been a few cases where it's clearly an attempt to commit fraud and we are taking action."

He said the company has learned from the first round of funding announcements and is in a "good place" to prevent fraud in future rounds of grants.

Mr Thomas added it had been a "steep learning curve" for council counter fraud teams.