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Lord Goodhart
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Australian PM
Ministry Fraud
By Alison
Steed (Filed:
19/01/2005) From the Weekly Telegraph Jan 19th '04
The national Audit Office has again refused to sign off the Department for Work and Pensions' accounts after an estimated £3billion was lost through "fraud and error" for the third consecutive year.
The Government's financial watchdog has not accepted the department's accounts for the past 15 years.
The biggest losses relate to income support and jobseeker's allowance, which Sir John Bourn, the NAO's head, described as "the two benefits with the highest risk of fraud and error".
In the year to March 31, 2004 the DWP lost £840m in overpayments to working age claimants on these two benefits, down from an equivalent sum of £1.2billion lost between October 1997 and September 1998, and £920m in 2002-03.
Losses for 2003-04 amounted to 6.4pc of expenditure, compared with 10.4pc in 2002, which means the DWP exceeded the Government's target to reduce errors by a third.
The DWP claimed it had "more than halved losses in those benefits due to fraud" in this period, saving £1billion of taxpayers' money since 1998. However, there were also losses in retirement pension payments, attendance allowance and disability living allowance.
A further £650m was lost in housing benefit, with £67m overpaid through errors by officials in incapacity benefit.
When the NAO looked to verify the incapacity benefit estimates through a sample of 800 claimants, the DWP was "unable to locate the supporting papers" in 106 cases. Sir John consequently "qualified" his audit on this point.
While welcoming the DWP's efforts to reduce losses, he added: "The challenges the department faces in reducing the scale of fraud and error across the benefit system to an acceptable level still remain very large indeed."
The DWP admitted its losses "are still too high", but said the figures in the NAO report "represent the clearest evidence yet that the Department's strategies are working". However, Edward Leigh, chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, described the losses as "a grievous waste of public resources".
Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on Work and Pensions, said: "For the majority of benefits the Government has no real idea just how much fraud and error there really is."
The DWP spokesman added: "Much is being done to tackle official error levels. The incidence of error is continuously monitored and improvement targets are set. New IT is already helping to reduce errors, and making cross-checking between benefits more automatic.
There is a new emphasis on introducing greater standardisation into benefit processing. We are continuously looking at ways to simplify the benefits system and reduce complexity."
Premier of Victoria speaks out.
This letter from Steve Bracks, Premier of Victoria, came about as a result of the efforts of BAPA member Arthur Lewis.
To Prime Minister Howard of Australia
Reproduced with the permission of the Premier.
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Lord Goodhart QC expresses his views
Extracts from a letter Lord Goodhart wrote to one of our members
I believe that the refusal
of the British Government to uprate the state pension of pensioners who have
gone to live in some overseas countries (including Canada) is a gross injustice
which should be remedied irrespective of cost. When I was the party spokesman
on pensions I raised this issue several times in the House of Lords.
Meanwhile, the fact that the appeal committee of the House of Lords has given
leave to appeal in the Carson case gives at least some grounds for hope. Keep
your fingers crossed.
Yours sincerely,
(Sgd) William Goodhart
Carson appeals to the House of Lords
The British Times Newspaper, on August 2nd '03 reports that a secret benefactor has come forward through one of the Canadian British Pensioner Associations pledging sufficient money to take the Carson case to the House of Lords. Graham Chrystie, Annette Carsons lawyer has now requested permission to lodge an appeal with the Lords. However as the House is in recess an answer will not be forthcoming till October. If permission is granted the appeal is unlikely to be heard until March 2004.
If permission is denied Mr Chrystie says she will consider applying for her case to be heard in the European Court of Human Rights.
Stephen Womack reports in Britain's Financial Mail that they have discovered that the Canadian Government has paid more than £150,000 to two pensioner action groups reimbursing them for legal bills.
Carson's solicitor, Graham Chrystie, says "We were out of cash. Without this new backing the case could not have gone forward."
Howard attacks UK on frozen
pensions
The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, has renewed his criticism of the British government following last week's Appeal Court ruling that expatriates' pensions can remain frozen in some countries, including Australia.
"We have been lobbying the British Government for years," he said. "But so far they've been completely unwilling to change."
"Our view is that the British Government should have fully indexed British pensioner recipients. This is very important in particularly South Australia and Western Australia where there is an above average number of people who were born in the United Kingdom."
The British policy costs Australia about $100 million (£40 million) a year in topping up British expat pensions.
Amanda Vanstone, the Australian minister for family and community services, said: "It's disgraceful that the UK Government takes the contributions from their pensioners during their working lives and then refuses to index those pensions in retirement if a pensioner chooses to live in Australia rather than, say, the United States. It is morally wrong.
"The indexation issue remains a priority for this Government and I will personally take every opportunity to resolve this matter and to pursue a better outcome for the 221,000 UK pensioners in Australia who are affected by the UK's discriminatory policy.
"Australia indexes every one of the pensions or benefits it pays to former residents living overseas. Most other countries behave the same way.
"The UK's penny pinching policy is well out of step with international practice in this area and the UK Government needs to reverse its indefensible position."
