§ Mr. Maloneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will announce the outcome of the studies by his Department's operational research service into specialist claims control and the comparative cost-effectiveness of other types of anti-fraud work.
§ Mr. Tony NewtonThe summary report of the two studies by the operational research service has now been received and I have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of the report together with a detailed statement on the conclusions reached in the light of the recommendations made.
The main conclusions are (a) that the method of calculating benefit savings achieved by anti-fraud efforts should be revised; (b) that although this revision has the effect of reducing the estimated yield of benefit savings, specialist claims control remains a highly cost-effective operation and will therefore continue; (c) that in order to increase cost-effectiveness further, specialist claims 475W control teams will in future target their investigations more closely towards those cases which the study showed to be the most successful.