§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if the Government have fulfilled their commitment in paragraph 3.18 of the White Paper, "Safeguarding Social Security", to ensure that data are correct on 1.8 million payroll items; how many anomalies(a) were found, (b) were passed to fraud investigators, (c) resulted in prosecution and (d) resulted in conviction; and of the anomalies, how many arose from cases where people were simultaneously working and claiming. [120859]
§ Mr. RookerDuring 1999–2000, 626,641 payroll records were checked. 288,924 anomalies were found, of which 251,201 were name and address changes. 6,223 cases were referred to fraud for investigation because of possible fraud. Of these, 5,943 involved suspicions that people might be claiming benefit without declaring their earnings. As of 31 March 2000, fraud has been proved in 683 of these cases and there have been 114 prosecutions leading to a conviction. We do not know how many prosecutions were unsuccessful in this area.
The National Insurance Contributions Office has a target to check 3 million payroll records in 2000–01.