§ Mrs. EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what measures his Department uses to gauge the effectiveness of moneys spent in(a) Scotland and (b) the UK on (i) reducing benefit fraud and (ii) increasing the uptake of benefit entitlements; and what assessment he has made of their effectiveness in each year between 1992–93 and 1998–99; [111165]
(2) how much was spent on (a) reducing benefit fraud and (b) increasing the uptake of benefits in (i) Scotland and (ii) the UK for each financial year between 1992–93 and 1998–99. [111168]
§ Mr. RookerIn the past each agency and local authority was responsible for its own operational plans for countering fraud. Apart from Fraud investigations, the costs of most anti-fraud activities were not separately identified. However, the Benefits Agency has had a national security and control programme since 1995. The figures in the table show the funding for the Security Control programme since its introduction.
£ million Actual security control programme funding Total funding including benefit fraud investigation service and benefit agency security investigation service 1995–96 106.5 182.6 1996–97 164 263.7 1997–98 246 336 1998–99 264 379.5 Total 780 1,161.8 However, this system had numerous flaws. In particular instead of a single goal, there was a series of centrally set targets, which failed to give staff a clear view of the overall outcome wanted. We have now replaced this with a single target. Our Public Service Agreement commits us to reduce by 30 per cent. benefit losses from fraud and errors in Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance by March 2007, with at least a 10 per cent. reduction 893W by March 2002. Customer fraud and error in these two benefits has been reduced by six per cent. for the 12 months ending March 1999, compared to the period ending September 1998.
Figures for earlier years could not be given without incurring a disproportionate cost. Research on why pensioners do not take-up their entitlement to Income Support was published on 15 October 1999. The evaluation of the pilot initiatives will be published later this year. The cost of the qualitative and quantitative research was £316,000. The pilot evaluation and the contextual survey that will be published with it will cost £279,000.