Benefit fraud in Hartlepool

"Benefit cheats have fiddled taxpayers out of a staggering £421,000 in Hartlepool over the last year", reports Emma Greenhalgh in the Hartlepool Mail.

"Fraudsters have also swindled £78,500 Income Support and Jobseekers' Allowance from the public's purse.... A further £206,000 may well have been sponged from the taxpayer, with 12 Hartlepool cases currently going through the courts."

Between April 2007 and April 2008, the council recorded almost £99,000 paid out in housing and council tax benefit to cheats conning the system.

For the financial year 2008-2009, that figure tripled to £343,000 – an increase of 246 per cent.

In total, she says, £46.3m and £42m was paid out in benefits for each year respectively.

Note that is the fraud identified - running at under 1% of payments made - so not so "staggering".

The question is: what proportion of benefit frauds is Hartlepool detecting?