The categories of benefit fraud used by DWP are listed in ‘Fraud and Error in the Benefits System October 2005 to September 2006’. Copies are available in the Library.
(2) what his Department's budget for fraud prevention is in each financial year in the 2007 spending review period.
The information is not available in the format requested.
The overall aim of the Department's anti-fraud strategy is to have a benefit system, which is secure from first claim to final payment. The implementation of this strategy means that an anti-fraud focus is integral to the work of all staff in the Department, as is dealing with the wider agenda of error and incorrectness in benefit payments. It is therefore not possible to account for the cost of anti-fraud work separately.
The Department runs a number of promotional campaigns aimed at increasing awareness of rights and responsibilities. The campaigns run by the Department to counter benefit fraud are designed to positively reinforce honest behaviour, to create a climate of intolerance to benefit fraud and to undermine its social acceptability. The following table details spend on these campaigns in each of the last six complete financial years:
Campaign spend (£000) 2001-02 8,833 2002-03 769 2003-04 9,362 2004-05 6,590 2005-06 7,459 2006-07 6,568 Notes: 1.Figures given are for actual spend on the Targeting Fraud (2001 to 2002), Targeting Benefit Fraud (2003 to 2006) and Targeting Benefit Thieves (2006 to 2007) campaigns. 2.All figures are exclusive of VAT. 3.The figures in these tables refer to media spend, design, PR, production, research and any other associated costs.