§ Mr. BradleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what steps have been taken to monitor the change in housing benefit regulations on the additional benefits claimed by prisoners on their release after losing their entitlement to housing benefit under the new regulations; [10451]
(2) how much has been saved in housing benefit since the implemention of the new regulations reducing the period of entitlement for prisoners' claims from 52 to 13 weeks. [10452]
§ Mr. HealdNew rules concerning the treatment of temporary absence from the home were introduced in housing benefit from April 1995. Information about the number of prisoners affected by the new rules will be available around the end of 1996. While benefit savings arising from the change to prisoners are estimated to be up to £10 million in a full year, the difficulty in quantifying behavioural effects prevents more robust estimates being made.
§ Mr. GallieTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he will publish his report of the review of the accuracy of housing benefit claims. [11314]
§ Mr. LilleyI am today publishing the main report of this review which shows that housing benefit fraud costs the taxpayer £1 billion a year. I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Library. I am grateful to the 52 local authorities and their staff who carried out the field work. The results establish for the first time the amount of loss through fraud, abuse and error and indicate where the highest risks of such losses lie.
832WThis level of fraud is clearly unacceptable. Local authorities which are not putting effort into tackling fraud and abuse must address the problem urgently. We already give local authorities financial incentives to detect fraud, rewarding success and penalising those who do too little. The success of this scheme has doubled savings from 00A3;92 million in 1993–94 to 00A3;171 million in 1994£95.
It is the responsibility of each local authority to protect taxpayers' money and not allow fraud to go unchecked. The results of the new review will enable them to concentrate their efforts on high risk categories of claimants and tenants.
Using this information, I am developing a five-year strategy which will crack down on this unacceptable level of fraud effectively and efficiently.
I will be strengthening the financial incentives for local authorities to detect fraud by increasing the rewards for success and the penalties for those who do too little.
I will be making funds of up to £10 million available specifically to enable local authorities to develop innovative ideas to tackle fraud.
I will be launching a national register of housing benefit and council tax benefit. This will match data across local authorities against departmental fraud detection systems£catching people claiming from more than one local authority.
We will be working closely with the Audit Commission to tighten up local authority methods of preventing fraudulent claims getting into the system.