asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will give for the longest and most convenient stated period of time the number of prosecutions instituted by his Department against persons for actual or attempted defrauding of the social services in any way; to what extent these were successful or unsuccessful; what were the amounts of money involved in these frauds; to what extent these cases were of persons convicted who have had their fines paid for out of public funds; how much money

Social Security Fraud		Year ended 31st December			Year ended 20th February
		1974	1975	1976	1978	1979
Total number Prosecuted	…	13,716	15,362	19,077	26,058	29,147
Number Convicted	…	13,475	15,025	18,711	25,615	28,575

The totals include cases prosecuted by the police and Post Office and, in the case of unemployment benefit, by the Department of Employment.