Housing Benefit Fraud

HC Deb 11 January 2001 vol 360 c613W

Mr. Cox

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been convicted of housing benefit fraud in each of the last three years. [144137]

Mr. Rooker

I have been asked to reply.

The information is in the table.

Number of Housing/Council Tax Benefit claimants convicted
Year	Number
1997–98	631 (700)
1998–99	714 (800)
1999–2000	730 (900)

Notes:

1. These figures are the total number of successful convictions (single combined figure for HB/CTB) reported by local authorities via the administration and policy monitoring returns.

2. Not all local authorities return the required statistics. Approximately 69 LAs having missing data for convictions in 1999–2000, 82 LAs with missing data in 1998–99 and 65 LAs with missing data in 1997–98.

3. The figures in parenthesis are the published estimates for the total number of claimants convicted.