An organisation called "inside government" is offering a one day
conference on benefit fraud in October. If you're in the private sector, one place will cost you £495, less a 10% discount for early booking.
According to the Audit Commission, ‘Protecting the Public Purse’ report, published September 2009, councils are losing millions of pounds a week through fraud and should be doing much more to crack down. The Audit Commission found housing tenancy fraud could be tying up at least 50,000 council and housing association properties worth more than £2 billion. Council taxpayers could be losing almost £2 million a week to fraudsters claiming a 25 per cent single person discount on their council tax.
The latest national statistics on Fraud and Error in the Benefit System: October 2008 to September 2009, produced by the Department for Work and Pensions were released on 27th May 2010. For 2009/10, it is estimated that 2.1 per cent, or £3.1bn, of total benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud and error. The preliminary estimate of total overpayments due to fraud and error across all benefits is £3.1bn, which is 2.1% of 2009/10 total benefit expenditure, which is forecast to be £148bn in 2009/10.
In other words, the authorised version. The truth is that benefit fraud alone is over £3.5bn a year.
Delegates will include fraud managers and officers, benefit fraud managers, benefit fraud investigation managers, heads of fraud and error policy, revenue managers, treasurers, auditors, corporate fraud managers, performance and audit managers, finance directors, compliance managers, risk managers, information assurance managers, solicitors, barristers, heads of housing, social landlords, heads of child services, employment managers, and will be drawn from central government, jobcentre plus, local government, housing associations, health authorities, legal teams, financial services, academia, third sector and the private sector.
That's an awful lot of managers and "heads" who've failed to grip the problems.
3 comments:
Ok so some people do milk the sytem, and some people do commit out and out fraud, but....
A lot of people are below the poverty line, and cannot get out of that trap, nowdays people are better off on the dole, rather than working, look at how many companies have gone bankrupt since labour took over.
I'm afraid "below the poverty line" is Labour spin. The so called poverty line needs to be redefined in terms of absolute need, rather than as a proportion of average income - when it will always rise as the average rises.
I agree people are often better off on the dole than working. But that doesn't excuse £3bn+ of benefit fraud every year.
If people are below the 'Poverty Line' then why are they committing benefit fraud. THe vast majority manage on their benefit payouts, so why should these benefit thieves be tolerated?
I agree that there are those that fall into 'fraud' by doing a bit of work on the side, however the majority of the minority who commit these frauds are just greedy. Thats the difference the needy and the greedy, its about time that the needy stood up to be counted and Shop A Fraudster, they give the Needy a bad name.
AS to the Conference, usually they are aimed at the 'Heads' because they hold the money, but do they listen, thats another story. Its about time that the 'Heads' listened not only at a conference but to their own investigators, unless more resourses are aimed at the problem it will never get dealt with properly. Although a good measure would be to simplify the system, there are too many organisations paying out benefits who don't talk to one another and the 'Trust System' of reporting changes in circumstances will always be abused, they should go back to sending out reviews every 6 months, may cost more in admin costs but the savings to the tax payer would be immense, could never understand why it was changed to the current system!
Post a Comment