§ Mr. Gregory CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what his estimate is of the extent of benefit fraud in Northern Ireland; and what measures are in place to deal with it. [170482]
§ Mr. SpellarI am totally committed to a robust approach to tackling fraud and error and abuse of the social security system wherever it occurs.
The Social Security Agency is unable to measure the amount of fraud across all benefits on an annual basis. However, a programme of Benefit Reviews is carried out on a regular basis across all of the major Social Security benefits. During the 2003–04 year the following levels were estimated:
Income support, 1.6 per cent. (£7.625 million) of benefit expenditure;Jobseekers allowance, 6.1 per cent. (£6.626 million) of benefit expenditure;Housing benefit, 2.2 per cent. (£6.967 million) of benefit expenditure.During 2002–03, a Benefit Review was carried out in Incapacity Benefit. A total of 591 cases were examined of which only 2 (0.3 per cent.) were found to be fraudulent. Based on this small number of fraudulent cases, it is anticipated that this equates to £0.94 million of benefit expenditure.
The Social Security Agency has a comprehensive and rigorous strategy for combating fraud designed to ensure that:
claims entering the system are legitimate;once in the system claims are maintained properly; andwhere fraud does enter the system it is detected and appropriate action is taken.In the period from April 2003 to March 2004, 7,761 cases of suspected fraud were investigated. Of these cases, 3,944 (51 per cent.) resulted in withdrawal of claims or changes in the rate of benefit paid and 345 were referred for prosecution. In the same period there were 101 cases where administrative penalties were imposed and 54 cases where cautions were issued.