According to the accounting firm BDO Stoy Hayward, fraudsters are costing housing associations up to £400 million a year.
Simon Bevan, a BDO partner and head of its fraud services unit, suggested fraudsters are targeting housing associations because the projects they are involved in have grown rapidly in value and they are less sophisticated than the usual targets, such as banks.
Mr Bevan said:
"We have been retained for eight investigations this year already, compared with last year when we did a total of four. Housing associations are now our second biggest source of work after banks."
Allegedly, such fraud is typically committed in collusion with the land vendor and is achieved by inflating the sale price of the land or houses being bought.
Mr Bevan added:
"What we have found is that they are typically overvalued by about 20%. We reckon fraud is costing housing associations up to £820 million every two years."
The current three-year grant, from which associations must bid for funding, began in April and is worth £8.4 billion. The last grant was £3.9 billion for two years.
Mr Bevan said:
"As housing associations grow and get more money, there is more fraud."
For years, fraudsters have been overvaluing land on commercial development projects, funded by the banks. They are now infiltrating housing associations.
The arm's-length management organisation created by Doncaster MBC to manage its 21,000 homes responded to the credit crunch by launching a new website to give help and advice to council tenants on money matters.
St Leger Homes of Doncaster launched SLHD Moneywise, which provides information and help in a range of financial areas including benefits, how to budget, how to choose the cheapest energy supplier and what to do when money problems occur.
The website can be visited at www.slhdmoneywise.co.uk.
St Leger Homes will also be including information from the website in future editions of HouseProud - a bi-monthly magazine for St Leger Homes' customers.
New Progress Housing Association introduced a unique new service, allowing people who have registered on the SelectMove choice based lettings scheme to access the system via their digital TV or mobile phone.
The service can be accessed through Preston Connected TV, the Council's interactive digital TV site. It allows Sky and Virgin customers to access Select Move, a local service allowing people to search for social rented housing throughout South Ribble and Preston.
The service is also available to anyone with a 3-mobile or WAP/GPRS enabled phone.
The Select Move partnership itself was launched in July 2007 and is run by New Progress Housing Association, a subsidiary of Progress Housing Group, along with Community Gateway Association, Preston City Council, Adactus, Eaves Brook and South Ribble Borough Council.
The aim of the service is to make it easier for people to find social housing. The service will make a range of properties available in fortnightly cycles with properties being listed on the first day of the cycle, residents then have nine days to express an interest in up to five properties.
At the end of each fortnightly cycle, the successful applicant is selected from those who expressed an interest based on the criteria set out in the allocations policy of the SelectMove partnership.
A new mobile gym was launched by Places for People, to help youngsters and adults from South Tyneside ward off obesity and get in shape.
PLAYfit uses state of the art technology and creative ideas to create a fun and interactive youth and family gym facility. Experts will be on hand as visitors enjoy the dance machines, hand-eye reaction games, bikes, circuit equipment and other innovative fitness equipment, as well as offering classes in kickboxing and other sports.
It will be visiting schools, libraries and community facilities in the area, aiming to provide 200 adults and 1200 young people with gym and fitness learning sessions over the next six months.
Paul Fairly, project team leader at housing group Places for People, Said
"Almost half of children in the UK are not active enough for optimal growth and development, and obesity is a growing problem among adults and children alike.
"In creating PLAYfit, we wanted to provide an enjoyable fitness service that would bring people together. Parents are real role models for children, and leading a healthy lifestyle can be easy and fun if the whole family does it together."
The service also aims to engage with hard to reach and vulnerable groups, such as those affected by homelessness.
