Benefit fraud pays, Mr Plaskitt

More cases. Gordon Cullen, from West Kirby, has admitted benefit fraud (and counterfeiting). He has been sent to prison and is to pay £130,000 compensation.

Two Essex Tory councillors have been jailed for swindling their own council in a benefits scam. They had their own business, a US holiday home, and a rented-out flat but claimed £3,400 in council tax benefits. The council has been repaid.

Keith McNiffe has stood down as Mayor of Pembroke. He has been charged with claiming thousands of pounds in disability living allowance while continuing to referee at football matches, and appears in court on Monday.

Robert Marsh, from Cosham, has admitted six offences of benefit fraud worth £12,600. Earlier this week, Barry Marsh, his father, was sentenced for swindling £30,000 in incapacity and council tax benefits. They had a business and enjoyed foreign holidays.

Nilesh Patel, from Greenwich, claimed incapacity benefit, Income Support, housing benefit and council tax benefit as he was unable to work due to osteoarthritis, but he did not mention while he was claiming that his wife had £85,258 in a building society account, which disqualified him from income-based benefits. Having conned the benefits system out of £17,478, he was ordered to pay costs of £300, as well as £700 to the Council (as well as community service - has he repaid the rest?).

An asylum seeker who fiddled £25,000 in benefits – while he had £500,000 in the bank – has been ordered to pay back just £1 because he's made away with the rest of his money.

A North Tyneside woman who fraudulently claimed benefits of more than £10,000 has been given a community order and told to pay the money back, after submitting false benefit application forms to North Tyneside Council.

An Elstree woman has been convicted of benefit fraud totalling £1,260. She had failed to declare more than £50,000 she had made from the sale of a repossessed property.

A Hadfield woman claimed £4,018 in Income Support, Job Seekers Allowance, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit for periods between 2004 and 2007. During this time, she worked for five different employers in part time, low paid cleaning jobs, but failed to disclose this. Reading the report, one feels some sympathy for her. It's a crime, but the system makes it easy for weak people to slip into continuing to claim dishonestly.

A Northumberland property tycoon who owns houses worth more than £3m has admitted a £6,000 benefit fraud. After he finally changed his plea to guilty, Judge David Hodson gave him a conditional discharge! James Plaskitt, the Fraud Minister, said, ""We are taking a tough line on benefit fraudsters because they steal £20m a year in the North East - money that should be spent on those who really need it." Where did you get that number, James? - bearing in mind that the DWP alone lost £690m to fraud in one year. Are people in the North East outstandingly honest, perhaps?

Let's look at a few numbers in recent news stories. Scarborough Council has revealed that it is paying out more than £35m a year in rent and council tax benefits. It deals with with around 150 new claims and 210 changes in circumstances each week. How many of these can they realistically check manually?

Set that against North Shropshire District Council, who proclaim that they are "in the process of recovering £48,000 of tax payers’ money after bringing charges against benefit cheats in the past year". What proportion of benefit fraudsters do we think they caught?

Wear Valley District Council announce that sixty five benefit fraudsters in their area have been "brought to justice" since last April through fines, cautions or prosecution. Note that not all of this meagre total were prosecuted, so not all the cases will have become public. The council say (my emphasis)

EVEN WHEN customers refuse to co-operate with our investigation officers, if the weight of the evidence is sufficient, we will ensure that those committing fraud receive the appropriate punishment.

When you look at these numbers, remember that new software has helped Harrow Council save around £336,711 in benefit payouts - a massive 34% more than the total fraud the council had thought they were suffering.

Then consider the Conservative claim that £28m in child benefit being sent to EU Accession States. How could anyone check any of this?

Conclusion - you can probably get away with a benefit fraud claim (as Fiona MacKeown appears to have done), just as you can probably get away with car tax evasion.

As we've said before, we need as a start to have stronger penalties, and to have the voice pattern software adopted nationally. Meanwhile if you are contemplating it, the chances are that benefit fraud pays. We pay as taxpayers.