One in five benefit fiddlers not prosecuted
One in five councillors and officers caught fiddling housing benefit are escaping prosecution, it emerged this week.

MPs have reacted with fury at the news, claiming that elected members or their officers were "making monkeys" of parliament and the public purse.

It has been revealed that despite the discovery of 382 cases of internal fraud in 57 different local authorities, almost 20 per cent have not been taken to court.

Embarrassed officials from the Department of Social Security told the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee that it planned to meet with the 11 councils which uncovered internal fraud but did not prosecute.

They were revealed to be Castle Morpeth, Chiltern, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kirklees, Lichfield, Redditch, St Edmundsbury, St Helens, Tower Hamlets and Wirral.

According to government statistics, the individual value of each case is around four times the size of frauds committed by claimants, at around £2,200 each.

Angry committee members criticised the DSS permanent secretary Rachel Lomax, director of fraud strategy Robert Devereux and housing benefit policy director Don Brereton for failing to force authorities to prosecute, according to minutes published this week.

Labour MP Gerald Steinberg told them that the department had a "lackadaisical" attitude to housing benefit fraud and "pussyfooting around". He said: "Local authorities are making monkeys out of everybody here and the department is doing nothing about it."

He added: "There are local authorities who do not prosecute fraudsters even though they catch them. That just seems incredible. It is like me walking into Marks & Spencers, pinching a pound of apples and then walking out and them not prosecuting."

Lomax insisted the department intended to investigate why councillors and officers had escaped prosecution.

She said the high proportion of internal fraud, at 25 per cent of councils surveyed, was "not something that anybody feels remotely happy about."

Local Government Association chairman Sir Jeremy Beecham insisted: "Councils do not tolerate fraud at any level, including crime committed by employees and elected representatives."

However, he said councils were put off prosecuting because of the brief sentences and expensive procedures, adding that the crime is not considered seriously by the courts or the police.

Source

Housing Today