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Dept of Social Security

Answer

Mr. Alan Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many calls have been made to the fraud hotline, broken down by type of benefit and outcome of investigation. [13051] Mr. Heald: Up to end of December 1996, in the region of 130,000 calls had been made to the national benefit fraud hotline. Approximately 97,000 referrals have been received by the benefit fraud investigation service so far. Of these, around 76,000 were recorded on the fraud management information system and 5,000 have been recorded separately as part of spotlight initiative. The remaining 16,000 cases are either in transit between offices, awaiting initial scrutiny before entry on to the system, or linked to a referral previously received where an investigation is already under way. From the recorded referrals, so far around 31,000 are being investigated, with 15,500 completed, of which 5,100 have scored benefit savings in the region of £14.1 million. The remaining 15,500 are expected to generate an additional £13.4 million in benefit savings. We believe that the existence of the fraud hotline also has a significant, although unquantifiable, impact on the level of fraud committed. The fraud hotline caller does not always know the benefits in payment. Consequently, details of calls on a benefit-by-benefit basis have not been kept. This information is available for general fraud referrals, but it is not possible to track referrals in this way for specific fraud initiatives, such as hotline.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

13051; 289 c709-10W

Session

1996-97

Subjects

Abuse Fraud Social security Telephone services

Contains statistics

Yes