§ Mr. Frank Fieldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give the latest available information on (a) the numbers of claimants losing the right to benefit, broken down into the following categories of reasons: (i) left employment without just cause, (ii) refused suitable employment without just cause, (iii) failure to maintain, (iv) cohabitation, (v) fictitious desertion and (vi) any other reason, (b) the numbers of claimants prosecuted (i) for fraud in contributory benefit cases, (ii) for fraud in supplementary benefit cases and (iii) for failure to maintain and (c) the numbers of staff employed in fraud work (i) in total and (ii) broken down into (1) unemployment review officers, (2) local office fraud officers, (3) special investigators and (4) specialist claims control.
§ Dr. Boyson[pursuant to his reply, 4 July 1984, c. 203]: During the year ended November 1983, the latest period for which information is available, supplementary benefit was withdrawn in 6,300 cases on the grounds of `cohabitation'. Information is not collected as to the numbers of claimants losing their right to supplementary benefit for other reasons.
During the year ended February 1984 there were 3,896 prosections for fraud in contributory benefit cases, 9,101 in supplementary benefit cases and 216 under section 25 (Supplementary Benefits Act 1976) for failure to maintain.
2,218 officers were allocated to fraud work in the year ended March 1984. Of these, 1,522 were local office fraud officers, 521 were special investigators and 175 were 586W specialist claims control officers. There were 900 members of staff engaged on unemployment review but this is not regarded as fraud work.