[joglynne]

I worked in this area for several years up to about 5 years ago and rarely saw anyone prosecuted for a second time let alone a third. The cost of preparing and taking a claimant to court, together with the time constraints of bringing a case, meant that only a relatively small number of cases ever got that far. That is not to say that repayment was not pursued just that only a small percentage of cases ever got as far as a conviction being sought.

There have also always been special drives to hit certain areas of fraud and the measure of success was not just the successful prosecution of a single claimant but the ripple effect that prosecution could have upon claimants in that area and/or in similar circumstances. Whether it be, for example, people doing undeclared work for complicit employers or a well publicised case of a public figure being caught out doing the supposedly impossible with their declared physical limitations.

I vividly remember one firm who were found to have over a hundred employees not declaring that they were working whilst claiming benefits. When our inspectors made spot checks the firm was left with virtually no employees below supervisory grade as they had all stopped working.

A fair few of the people investigated were found to be living well beyond the means of even their inflated benefit claims so we could only guess in most cases how they were funding their lifestyles and I could only assume they were already involved with other forms of criminal activity so stopping their benefits wouldn't have driven them to a life of crime, rather just shifted the balance.

As far as lack of communication between other benefit agencies is concerned I can only say that there are means to exchange information in place and they are, on the whole, effective in terms of stopping unwarranted benefit being paid however the shear number of cases involved meant that with the best will in the world there were months of work backlogged waiting to have any overpayments assessed and collection instigated, or the fraud aspect investigated.

This may have improved since I left but whilst I worked in that field it certainly never helped that staffing levels were never in line with the amount of work that needed to be done and using more investigators would only add to the backlog not help clear any existing problem.