HC Deb 04 February 2000 vol 343 cc750-1W
Mr. Peter Bottomley

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what the subsidies were in each of the past 10 years to(a) Worthing Borough Council, (b) Arun District Council and (c) all English local housing authorities combined for investigation and detection of housing benefit and council tax fraud; and if he will make a statement. [108186]

Angela Eagle

Local authorities are paid an administration subsidy that helps meet the general cost of administering the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit schemes. Specific financial incentives for investigating and detecting fraud were first introduced in April 1993 in the form of the weekly benefits savings scheme. Details of payments made under that scheme are set out in table 1.

The criteria for making claims under this scheme were tightened in 1998 following concerns expressed by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee that some councils had previously overclaimed. The scheme has been further amended from 1999–2000 onwards to provide additional incentives to local

Weekly Benefit Savings (WBS) incentive scheme—rewards councils for detecting fraud
£
Financial year 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–991
Total for Arun District Council 4,849 113,101 214,848 391,780 233,146 56,615
Total for Worthing Borough Council 9,597 60,160 59,326 138,023 271,586 148,497
Total for all English local authorities 5,545,296 16,799,643 26,668,908 38,309,208 55,115,791 2,600,893
1 This is the last full year for which data are available

Verification Framework—prevents fraud getting into the system, first introduced in 1998–99
Financial year 1998–99 (£)
Total for Arun District Council 54,043
Total for Worthing Borough Council 58,384
Total for all English local authorities 5,688,517

Challenge funding—three year scheme where Councils could submit bids for innovative anti-fraud initiatives
Financial year 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99
Total for Arun District Council 18,000 43,000 35,000
Total for Worthing Borough Council 29,167 0 0
Total for all English local authorities 6,084,618 11,965,577 7,015,880