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Dept for Work and Pensions

Answer

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the cost of (a) operating and (b) advertising the benefit fraud hotline was in 2003; and how many people have been successfully prosecuted for fraud as a result of evidence from the hotline since its inception. [196851] Mr. Pond: The operational cost of the national benefit fraud hotline (NBFH) for year ending 2002-03 (April- March) was £959,277, and for year ending 2003-04 was £1,038,505. The cost of advertising is not separately assessed. Notes: 1. Since the Targeting Benefit Fraud advertising campaign started in 2003, the NBFH has been included in the campaign advertising and has not been the subject of its own advertising. 2. Operational costs include staffing and goods and service costs. 3. The operational costs of administering the NBFH include the costs of administering report-a-cheat-online. These costs cannot be separated. Source: National Benefit Fraud Hotline The available information on the number of successful prosecutions as a result of evidence from the NBFH is in the table. National benefit fraud hotline successful prosecutions _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Prosecutions Convictions April 1999-March 2000 376 335 April 2000-March 2001 542 492 April 2001-March 2002 768 703 April 2002-March 2003 780 706 April 2003-March 2004 672 619 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. Full information on the number of successful prosecutions resulting from calls to the NBFH is available only from April 1999 Source: Fraud Information By Sector (FIBS).

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

426 c1180-1W;426 c1184-5W; 196851

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Advertising Costs Fraud Prosecutions Social security benefits Telephone services Operating costs

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk