§ Mr. Nicholas Edwardsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he will publish the report of the committee on Abuse of Social Security Benefits; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Sir K. JosephI have today published, as Command Paper No. 5228, the report of the Committee on Abuse of Social Security Benefits, set up by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, the chairman and members of the Supplementary Benefits Commission and myself. Their terms of reference required the committee to review the measures taken to prevent and detect abuse through wrongful claims to social security benefits and to recommend any changes in procedures they thought necessary.
The Government attach great importance to vigorous measures against abuse and I am glad to say that the committee finds that the two Departments have in general adopted sensible measures to prevent and detect abuse, have made good and economic use of the staff resources available to them and have proper regard to their obligations to deal promptly and sympathetically with claims for benefit. The committee pays tribute to the way the staff go about their work. often in difficult circumstances.
A great many, though not all, of the committee's recommendations can be accepted. Some indeed endorse existing policies and practices. Others are acceptable in principle, but may need further examination in practical detail. In the case of some, while agreeing with the intentions underlying the committee's recommendations, we propose different methods of putting them into effect.
The committee recommend that the Department should attempt to obtain more reliable information about the existing extent of abuse by investigating claims to benefit selected by the statistical method of random sampling. However, 364W this involves, if it is to give meaningful results, making personal inquiries in the neighbourhood about people who happen to have claimed benefit, the majority of whom would be innocent and under no suspicion of abuse. The Government believe that a better and less objectionable use of the available staff will be to conduct intensive local campaigns against the most serious forms of abuse of benefit. The Fisher Committee considers that the most serious form of abuse at present is that by people who draw contributory or supplementary benefit and conceal the fact that they are working or earning. These local campaigns will be mounted in selected areas or in relation to particular occupations in certain areas in which this kind of abuse is likely to be more prevalent. Within these areas or selected occupations, every case in which there is the smallest suspicion of malpractice would be vigorously investigated. We intend to increase the complement of staff engaged in investigation of cases involving suspicion of drawing benefit while working and earning sufficiently to step up the time spent on the investigation of such cases by something like 30 per cent.
The committee recommend better supervision of the measures taken by my Department and that of my right hon. Friend to prevent and detect abuse. The Government accept this recommendation in principle, but instead of a Standing Committee I am asking my hon. Friend, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security to accept a special responsibility for securing better central co-ordination and direction of measures to prevent and detect abuse.
I should like to express the Government's thanks to Sir Henry Fisher and his colleagues for their detailed study and their realistic approach to the whole subject.