§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of prosecutions were successful(a) of all prosecutions for benefit fraud, (b) of prosecutions for benefit fraud under the Theft Acts and (c) of prosecutions for benefit fraud under the Social Security Acts, in (i) 1996–97, (ii) 1997–98 and (iii) 1998–99. [81698]
709W
§ Mr. TimmsBenefits Agency operational matters are the responsibility of the Chief Executive, Peter Mathison, I have asked him to reply to my right hon. Friend.
Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Frank Field, dated 22 April 1999:
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your recent parliamentary question asking what proportion of prosecutions were successful (a) of all prosecutions for benefit fraud, (b) of prosecutions for benefit fraud under the Theft Acts and (c) of prosecutions for benefit fraud under the Social Security Acts, in (i) 1996–97, (ii) 1997–98 and (iii) 1998–99.
The attached table, Table 1, provides the requested information for prosecutions successfully concluded by the Benefit Fraud Investigation Service (BFIS) and the Benefit Agency Security and Investigation Service (BASIS) in England and Wales.
An average of 5–10% of cases brought to court are withdrawn, acquitted, dismissed or found not applicable. This accounts for the number of successful prosecutions being less than 100%. BASIS prosecutes under various Acts in addition to the two referred to above, for example the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act.
I am unable to give you the information in the format requested for Scotland as the Procurator Fiscal is not obliged to provide information to the Agency about the legislation under which charges are brought or what those charges were. I have therefore given you the overall percentage of successful prosecutions by BFIS in Scotland. This is shown in Table 2.
The Benefit Agency Security Investigation Service, in Scotland, was successful in prosecuting 100% of the cases submitted to the Procurator Fiscal in 1997/8. Figures available for 1998/9 indicate that BASIS in Scotland submitted and had accepted for prosecution 90 cases of which 25 have already been successfully concluded.
I hope you find this helpful.
Table 1: Percentage of successful prosecutions by the Benefit Fraud Investigation Service (BFIS) and the Benefit Agency Security and Investigation Service (BASIS) in England and Wales percentage 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 Sec 112 Social Security Administration Act 95 94 91 Theft Act 90 92 94 BASIS (serious fraud) 90 84 82 Total (BFIS & BASIS) 94 94 91 Source:
BA Security Implementation & Support and BFIS
Table 2: Percentage of prosecutions for Fraud by the Benefit Fraud Investigation Service (BFIS) in Scotland percentage 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 All BFIS cases 99 99 98 Source:
BFIS