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Author: Great Britain. National Audit Office Publisher: ISBN: 9780102920635 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 66
Book Description
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spends about £100 billion per year on welfare benefits, more than a quarter of central government expenditure. It is estimated that some £2 billion pounds are lost each year due to fraudulent claims, mostly for Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance and Housing Benefit. This report by the National Audit Office examines the scale and nature of benefit fraud, as well as the success of the DWP and local authorities to tackle the problem. Overall, the report concludes that fraudsters will continue to operate whilst the gain from cheating outweighs the risk of detection and the likely penalty. The programmes implemented to address the problem have produced some good results, but more needs to be done, such as: dissemination of good practice in order to raise regional performance regarding detection and prevention of fraud and reduce regional variations; and more research to estimate the level of fraud and to evaluate the deterrent effect of the different sanctions available. Currently, DWP policy restricts the use of cautions and penalties to frauds below £1,500. Raising this limit would allow greater flexibility in the use of these options as alternatives to prosecution in borderline cases.
Author: Great Britain. National Audit Office Publisher: ISBN: 9780102920635 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 66
Book Description
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spends about £100 billion per year on welfare benefits, more than a quarter of central government expenditure. It is estimated that some £2 billion pounds are lost each year due to fraudulent claims, mostly for Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance and Housing Benefit. This report by the National Audit Office examines the scale and nature of benefit fraud, as well as the success of the DWP and local authorities to tackle the problem. Overall, the report concludes that fraudsters will continue to operate whilst the gain from cheating outweighs the risk of detection and the likely penalty. The programmes implemented to address the problem have produced some good results, but more needs to be done, such as: dissemination of good practice in order to raise regional performance regarding detection and prevention of fraud and reduce regional variations; and more research to estimate the level of fraud and to evaluate the deterrent effect of the different sanctions available. Currently, DWP policy restricts the use of cautions and penalties to frauds below £1,500. Raising this limit would allow greater flexibility in the use of these options as alternatives to prosecution in borderline cases.
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780102951776 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 54
Book Description
This NAO report is a follow up to one issued in the 2002-03 session (HC 393, ISBN 9780102920635), Tackling Benefit Fraud. The report sets out some key facts, including: that the total benefit expenditure is £120 billion; the total number of recipients is 18 million; the total estimated fraud is £0.8 billion. In the 2006-07 period, £154 million was spent on six strategies to reduce fraud, with a Departmental estimate of £106 million of benefit overpayments identified as a result of fraud investigation and compliance activity. Also in the 2006-07 period, the Department recovered £22 million of the total £339 million outstanding fraud debt. Although the NAO has identified that fraud has fallen from an estimated £2 billion in 2001-02 to an estimated £0.8 billion in 2006-07, official error has risen in the same period from £1 billion to £1.9 billion. Tackling fraud is a key priority for the Department for Work and Pensions, and the report examines the main anti-fraud initiatives, recognising that: tackling benefit is inherently difficult; that the UK has levels of social security fraud and error which are similar to those of comparable countries; that the Department has made good progress in tackling fraud, but will find it increasingly difficult to secure further year on year reductions. The NAO has also set out a number of recommendations, including: that the Department's management information on fraud could be improved, with greater communication between the various departmental directorates responsible for counter-fraud work; that a review of the cost effectiveness of the Customer Compliance approach (which deals with lower risk cases of fraud) should be done; that a record of the outcomes of prosecution activities should be taken by case type to provide better Departmental information; that the Department must review recovery of overpayments in fraud cases and consider setting appropriate targets for recovery from customers who have committed fraud.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215521576 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 52
Book Description
Benefit fraud is a crime and undermines public confidence in the benefits system. In 2006-07, the Department for Work and Pensions estimated that it spent some £154 million on tackling fraud, identifying £106 million of overpaid benefit, against total benefit expenditure of £120 billion. The Department estimates that fraud fell from £2 billion in 2001-02 to £800 million in 2006-07, which is 0.6% of benefit expenditure. But the Department must do more to reverse the rise in official and customer error. Estimated error rose from £1 billion in 2001-02 to £1.9 billion in 2006-07. Benefit complexity is believed to be a major cause of error. Increasing the volume of pre-payment checks and encouraging customers to receive benefit payments directly into their bank accounts has prevented some fraud. The Department now works closely with the police, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and local authorities to prevent, identify and act against fraud. But it could make more effective use of its powers and resources. While the Department successfully prosecutes 90 per cent of the cases it takes to court, the Prosecution Division has lost 17 per cent of its staff since 2003. Debt recovery is an essential part of tackling fraud, yet in 2006-07 the Department only recovered £22 million of fraud debt out of a known fraud debt stock of £339 million. The Department has been slow to improve its management information systems, hampering its ability to measure the cost-effectiveness of counter-fraud activities. It has taken from 2003 until February 2008 to roll out a new national management information system, known as FRAIMS, at a cost of £65 million.
Author: Great Britain. Parliament House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts Publisher: ISBN: 9780215011541 Category : Languages : en Pages : 41
Book Description
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spends about £100 billion per year on welfare benefits (representing more than a quarter of central government expenditure) and it is estimated that £2 billion pounds are lost each year due to fraudulent claims, mostly for Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance and Housing Benefit. Following on from a National Audit Office report (HCP 393, session 2002-03; ISBN 010292063X), the Committee's report examines the progress made in reducing fraud levels, further actions required; and in particular considers the special problems of Housing Benefit fraud. The main conclusions reached include: i) that although the DWP has made some progress, more still needs to be done, for example in establishing performance improvement plans to address regional disparities; ii) the DWP will need to demonstrate that new initiatives launched to reduce housing benefit fraud are effective in reducing long-standing problems in performance deficiencies of some local authorities; and iii) the complexity of the benefits system needs to be reduced in order to made real and sustained progress in tackling benefit fraud.
Author: Great Britain. National Audit Office
Author: Great Britain. National Audit Office
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Author: Great Britain. Parliament House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
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Author: 
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Author: Dee Cook
Author: Ministerial Review into Benefit Fraud and Abuse (N.Z.)
Author: Great Britain. Benefit Fraud Inspectorate