Benefit Fraud Investigation

Benefit fraud is a serious case of theft: not only are fraudsters cheating taxpayers of their money, they are diverting money from those who genuinely need benefits to survive at a reasonable level of living.

The National Fraud Policy published its first annual fraud indicator which stated that fraud costs the UK £30 billion a year.

Tackling benefit fraud

We have a legal duty to provide a benefits service for those in Enfield who qualify and ensure that they are entitled to it.

The Benefit Investigation Team's duties include:

• Ensuring that benefits are paid correctly.
• Detecting fraudulent claims.
• Stopping and reducing payment in fraudulent cases.
• Taking action against offenders.
• Assisting with recovering money that was wrongly claimed.

The team receives alerts about possible fraudsters from various sources, such as Benefit and Revenue Team, Data Matching excercises and, most importantly, the public.

Raising awareness of fraud

We will continue to target benefit fraudsters according to the Prosecution and Sanction Policy adopted by the Council Members. We hope that publicising the team's successful actions will deter people from committing fraud.

Enfield Council was part of the recent national campaign 'Targeting Fraud' that had wide coverage on radio and television. The campaign was to raise public awareness of benefit fraud and reinforce the message that benefit fraud is wrong, unfair and will not be tolerated.