§ John BarrettTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people were successfully prosecuted in Scotland for(a) housing benefit, (b) income support, (c) council tax benefit and (d) jobseeker's allowance fraud in each of the last five years. [147829]
1057W
§ Mr. PondThe available information is in the table:
Number of successful benefit fraud prosecutions in Scotland 1DSS/DWP Agencies 2Local authority 1998–99 598 NA 1999–2000 494 NA 2000–01 510 NA 2001–02 503 23 2002–03 486 73 1 Fraud Information by Sector system 2 Local authority subsidy returns Note:
1. The DSS/DWP figures refer to prosecutions undertaken specifically by the Counter Fraud Investigation Services in Scotland. These figures cannot be broken down separately into individual benefits and include successful prosecutions for all benefits paid by the Department, including Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance. Figures relating to prosecutions carried out in Scotland by the National Investigation Service can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
2. The local authority figures are for successful prosecutions carried out by local authorities in Scotland in respect of Housing Benefit fraud and Council Tax Benefit fraud.
3. Information on the number of people successfully prosecuted by local authorities in Scotland is available only as a total figure for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit and can not be provided separately.
4. For figures prior to 1999–2000, the Fraud Information by Sector database shows completed cases commenced in the relevant period. Due to the elapsed time between commencement of an investigation and completion of a prosecution there are cases which are inserted into previously completed data for earlier periods. All totals are therefore correct at the time when quoted but subject to adjustment at a later date.
5. Reliable information for local authority prosecutions in Scotland is not available for 1998–99 to 2000–01.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many whole time equivalent staff were employed by his Department on anti-benefit fraud programmes in each of the last six years; what the operational costs were in each of those years; how much additional benefit was recovered in each case; and what the unit cost ratio of cost to benefit was in each case. [151016]
§ Mr. PondThe information is not available.
The overall aim of the Department's anti-fraud strategy is to have a benefit system which is secure from first claim to final payment. The implementation of this strategy means that an anti-fraud focus is integral to the work of all staff in the Department, as is dealing with the wider agenda of error and incorrectness in benefit payments. It is therefore not possible to account for the cost of anti-fraud work separately.
The information currently available shows that around 5,000 staff are employed nationally at any one time by the Department and its agencies in work to investigate suspicions of fraud.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many calls have been received by the National Benefit Fraud Hotline in each of the last six years; and how many(a) investigations, (b) prosecutions and (c) convictions have resulted. [151018]
§ Mr. PondThe available information is in the table.
1058W
National Benefit Fraud Hotline Number of calls received Investigations Prosecutions Convictions April 1997–March 1998 188,038 n/a n/a n/a April 1998–March 1999 170,032 n/a n/a n/a April 1999–March 2000 162,067 31,686 376 335 April 2000–March 2001 208,201 35,637 542 492 April 2001–March 2002 205,999 40,447 768 703 April 2002–March 2003 159,290 33,700 780 706 Notes:
Full information on the number of successful investigations, prosecutions and convictions resulting from calls to the National Benefit Fraud Hotline is available only from April 1999.
Source:
National Benefit Fraud Hotline and Fraud Information by Sector system
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff have been employed to investigate internal fraud within his Department in each of the last six years. [151021]
§ Mr. PondThe Department for Work and Pensions was created following a machinery of Government change in June 2001 by a merger of Department of Social Security and parts of the Department for Education and Employment and the Employment Service. Staff numbers involved in internal fraud investigations prior to June 2001 is now no longer available.
Between July 2001 and March 2003, internal fraud investigations were undertaken by regionally based staff. In some instances these were dedicated staff, in others there was a panel of investigators called upon as and when required. The information on the number of staff involved in investigations during this period is not now available.
From the 1 April 2003 it was decided that all internal fraud investigations would be undertaken by an independent team managed by the Director of Internal Assurance. Currently there are 66 full-time investigators and support staff undertaking this work.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on how many occasions the additional powers to obtain information from specified private and public sector organisations to tackle benefit fraud and error introduced by the Social Security Fraud Act 2001 have been used in each year since the powers took effect; and if he will list the organisations which(a) were asked to provide information and (b) supplied information. [151022]
§ Mr. PondThe information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.