Why fighting welfare fraud is not as simple as it seems

THE sequence of events since the results of the Central Statistics Office examination of the unemployment live register started to leak out last week has been predictable enough. The Government has promised a package of anti-fraud measures - the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, said so even before the figures became public knowledge - and much of the debate has ended up concentrating on the detail of the figures and what precisely they mean. Last night the Government promised to act "decisively and immediately" on the issues highlighted.

If only it was that simple. The scale of welfare fraud uncovered by the Central Statistics Office Survey is very significant. The study was conducted by comparing the results from a sample of over 2,000 names on the live register with data collected in the annual labour force survey, which involves CSO staff calling to households to get information about the population's working habits. The motivation for doing so was that the 1995 labour force survey had shown a level of unemployment which was 86 000

lower than the live register.

Interpreting the results of the CSO survey is not easy. For example, in 28 per cent of cases the social welfare claimant was not living at the address given as part of the live register claim.

How much of this is due to administrative factors and how much to fraud is impossible to say. Likewise, many of the people questioned indicated that they had no interest in taking a job. Does this indicate that large numbers of the unemployed are sitting around not looking for work, or is it just that many of the older unemployed have resigned themselves to never working again?

Some parts of the survey results are clear. The CSO researchers had to ignore the people they could not find for the fairly simple reason that the labour force survey could not be put to them. This left a sample of almost 1,500, from which the remaining results were drawn. Of this total, 11 per cent of those questioned said they had a full-time job. This is of particular concern to the Government, as it indicates that it is paying out more than £100 million a year in unemployment payments to people in full-time employment.

To combat this, Government officials are to step up visits to employers to check their records. However, the scale of this problem is so large that tackling it is no easy task.

Another report finding, and one which is difficult to interpret, is that many of those on the live register are not available for, or interested in, work. This amounts to more than 18 per cent of the live register total, according to the survey. To combat this, the Government has promised a whole range of new measures.

However, it is an area fraught with political difficulty, not to mention administrative problems. It will really come down to the willingness of social welfare officers to take a much tougher approach to ensuring that claimants are seeking work.

How much is welfare fraud costing? A reasonable interpretation of the figures, counting some but not all of those not at the live register addresses and all of those working full-time, might put the cost at £300 million to £350 million a year.

The Government's short-term measures cannot fully resolve this long-term crisis. A whole range of other issues also enter the equation, including the way the tax and welfare systems interact to discourage people from moving from the dole queue into employment.

Finally, there is the public acceptance of people operating in the black economy, which the survey indicates may be greater than previously estimated.