Midlothian Council: Benefit Fraud. Michael Grieve's blog.

Michael Grieve's blog is actually well known, but it is always a joy to read, with strong socialist foundations. Here is Michael's post on benefits.

I recently wrote a post on Benefit Fraud and how it was less than Tax fraud. However I wanted to prove the point by looking at one Local Authorities Benefit Fraud Figures for the last 5 years. In order to show that Local Authorities are taking Benefit Fraud serious and are dealing with it and have dedicated hard-working staff who are working to catch the culprits. Therefore this needs support but not changed as it is working.

I did not choose my own Local Authority as it is rather large and covers mainly a rural area of the Scottish Borders. Instead I chose a local Authority I used to work for. Midlothian Council which has a population of 80,941 (2001). This is a Local authority south of Edinburgh it therefore has a large commuter community as well as new industries such as biotechnology and old industrys such as agriculture. The Mining industry has long gone. However there is the Scottish Mining museum and It also has a tourist trade from Roslin Chapel which was in “The Da Vinci Code”. Midlothian is the Second smallest authority in Scotland.

As Midlothian is quite a varied area I felt it was a better place to look at the Benefit fraud. The figures I have are from 2005/06 – 2009/10. In 2005/06 there was £221,696.14 of Benefit Fraud discovered. This was for Housing and Council Tax Benefit. This was for 74 cases of a case load of 14,415. In 2006/07 the Fraud rose slightly to £227,108.42 this was 79 cases of a case load of 18,442. While in 2007/08 the fraud dropped to £176,066.54 this was 67 cases of a caseload of 18,194. In 2008/09 there was a drop again this time to £118,975.58 this involved 56 cases this was of a caseload of 17,855. In 2009/10 there was a substantial increase to £259,277.19 this was for 70 cases of a case load of 20,228. This shows an increase in Benefit Fraud Detection not necessarily an increase in fraud. The number of cases may not be large but the amount of fraud involved is. Credit must surely go to the investigation team. These figure show that fraud is happening however it appears the method of detection is in place and working.

While looking at the benefit fraud figures I also requested the Rent increase figures for Council House rents as Midlothian unlike a number of other local Authorities in Scotland has not created a Housing Trust. The rent increase were on average 5% each year. Council Tax did not increase over the 5 years you will note I sated the number of Benefit cases per year they don’t really have any bearing on the amount of Fraud Cases and the Rent increase and council Tax have no bearing either.

My conclusion after looking at the figures is that the evidence speaks for its self the current set up for Detection Fraud is working. However given the fact that COSLA estimates that 60,000 Jobs are estimated to be lost due to Government Cuts how long this service will detect all the fraud is the only question I am left with.

My Thanks to Midlothian Council Communications Team for Compiling the figures I have used.