Blue badge misuse in Hertfordshire is on the rise, as officers warn of organised fraud involving stolen badges being sold in London for up to £500 to drivers keen to avoid ULEZ charges.

A report into the Shared Anti-Fraud Service's (SAFS) activities was presented to Herts County Council's Audit Committee on Friday, July 24.

It found that blue badge misuse remains the biggest area of growth, with many cases resolved by warning letters.

SAFS dealt with 375 allegations of fraud affecting council services during 2025/26, according to the report, an increase from 347 in the previous year. It is part of a trend in rising fraud allegations which has been ongoing since 2020.

The largest increase was in reports of blue badge misuse, up to 220 from 204, followed by attempted mandate frauds targeting schools, which had risen to 65 from 51. Alleged fraud against care services dropped to 34 from 41, while allegations of payroll fraud reduced by one from 14 to 13.

The report revealed one case study in April 2025, when Action Fraud were alerted to a blue badge being used, despite the holder having died the previous year. As the name and address of the person misusing the badge were known, "a letter was sent advising about the need to return the badge and not to use it as it had been cancelled".

A second case study in June 2025 saw a blue badge cloned with the badge-holder's image replaced with that of a well-known international criminal. The badge was seized by police in Stevenage, and when the council ran checks on it, they found the details of a local resident on their system. The fake badge was destroyed, and the genuine badge-holder received a letter instructing them about badge security and not to allow it to be used or shared by others.

Cllr Richard Roberts (Conservative, Kings Langley) told the meeting he thought the work of SAFS and its head, Nick Jennings, should be "commended", with their "massive number of investigations".

He said: "It's not a flippant question… but what's with the blue badge fraud? To put it another way, fraud has gone up nearly three times since 2020, and it's alluded to that a lot of it is blue badge.

"Why have we got such a dramatic increase in fraud over the last five or six years?"

Mr Jennings said: "We tend not to call it blue badge fraud; we call it blue badge abuse because generally, it's people misusing a blue badge.

"There can be fraud; we've had counterfeit blue badges on the market, and we've had stolen blue badges which are used. Quite often, we'll find stolen blue badges that are stolen to order.

"Blue badges have a market street value. In London, you can buy a blue badge for £500, a stolen blue badge. Because, if you put that in your van while you're driving around, you don't have to pay ULEZ, you can park where you like, quite useful for delivery drivers.

"I'm not saying delivery drivers would do that, but it could be quite useful for delivery drivers or other people who are driving around [in] the increased number of places where there is a charge to drive a vehicle."

Independent member Richard Harbord honed in on this point and said: "Blue badge abuse, I'm going to say, is everywhere and it's very major. Certainly in all the London boroughs, it's colossal.

"It never ceases to amaze me because enforcement and fraud have organised stops [where] they'll go to a supermarket or several supermarkets… and they will always find blue badge abuse."

Cllr Miriam Swainston (Liberal Democrat, Bishop's Stortford West) said: "Are civil enforcement officers allowed to check blue badges? I've had an issue – and I know all schools have issues with it – parking outside the school.

"After civil enforcement went in, their comment was, 'There is an extraordinary number of blue badges parked outside there'. I just wondered if they do have the authority to check them."

Mr Jennings said: "The civil enforcement officers working in districts and boroughs do have powers to inspect and seize blue badges if they've found they've been misused. That's written into legislation and into their training guides."

Elsewhere, Cllr Roberts asked who the other partners were involved in SAFS.

Mr Jennings said: "Our partners in the SAFS partnership [are] Steven Borough Council, East Herts, North Herts, Hertsmere, Welwyn Hatfield, Broxbourne and Luton Borough Council. They are our partners who sit in our partnership; they all sit on our board.

"Then we have our client base… We have a trading arm, so we provide council services to other organisations such as Bucks Council, where we provide financial investigation services. It could be to Watford Community Housing Trust, where we provide their tenancy fraud service. It could be to Suffolk, where for two of the authorities we provide intelligence about their warmer homes scheme. So, there's a variety of services we can offer."

Cllr Stuart Roberts (Liberal Democrats, Harpenden North East) also praised SAFS, saying: "It is an outstanding piece of work. Every time you come and talk to us, you highlight just how much fraud is actually out there. The bit we don't know is how much more is out there and how much, with a bit more resource, you'd uncover.

"I'm very positive about this. I'm only going to pick up the one negative in here… and that is the operational days delivered, which has fallen below the KPI (key performance indicator)."

Mr Jennings said: "On those days, we had an issue with officer sickness during 2025/26 and that has impacted on our ability to deliver across all of our planned days across a number of partners, but particularly HCC; we fell short, so apologies for that. We were still able to deliver all of the other work we intended; none of the cases was delayed or held up with the investigation."

The report added: "At the end of March 2026, 33 cases remained under investigation with an estimated fraud loss of £1.1 million."

It stated that several cases of fraud identified in previous years had carried on into 2026/27, that was subject to sanction and potential recovery of £938k.