Benefit fraud

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What is benefit fraud?

Benefit fraud is where people claim for benefits they are not entitled to. The Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Benefit scheme is for people on low incomes who genuinely need help with their housing costs. Housing and Council Tax Benefits are means tested so each claim is assessed on each individual’s circumstances and different levels of benefit are awarded accordingly.

Some people make a claim for benefit without telling the council their true circumstances or deliberately fail to tell the council if their circumstances change.

The council has a duty to make sure that fraud and error is kept to an absolute minimum. Money lost through fraud could be otherwise invested in essential services. In the last year Wiltshire Council’s dedicated fraud investigation team identified over £571,107.02 in successful investigations and successfully took action against 146 benefit cheats.

Benefit fraud is not a victimless crime. Everyone who pays income tax or council tax is a victim.

What types of benefit fraud are there?

• People who work but do not declare it when claiming benefit.
• People who claim as a single person but actually have a partner living with them.
• People who do not tell us about the full amount of income, savings or capital they receive when making a claim for benefit.
• People who do not tell us if other adults are living in the household when making a claim for benefit.
• People who claim for an address when they are not living there.
• People who claim in more than one name.
• People who do not declare that they are living in a property owned by a close relative.
• People who do not tell us their true personal or financial circumstances when claiming benefit.

If you deliberately fail to report a change in your personal circumstances, this is also considered fraud.

If you allow someone or help someone to claim benefit under false circumstances you may also be guilty of an offence.

If you allow someone or help someone to continue claiming benefit when there has been a change in circumstances you may also be guilty of an offence.

Examples of change in circumstance

The following are examples of the sort of changes of circumstances you need to tell us about:

• you or your partner start or stop receiving Income Support (IS), Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• you start working, change your job, or your hours or income changes
• someone joins or leaves your household (including the addition of a new baby)
• the amount of any benefits you get changes (eg. tax credits increase)
• you start to receive any additional benefits
• you move house
• your rent changes
• you or your partner are going to be away from home for more than a month
• if you or anyone living with you becomes a student, goes on a youth training scheme, goes into hospital or a nursing home, goes into prison, or gets, changes or leaves a job
• you receive any decision from the Home Office

Ways to report benefit fraud

• call the National Fraud Hotline on 0800 3286340
• use our online fraud reporting form
• contact your local council office to make a report

You do not have to give your name and we promise you complete confidentiality at all times

The more detail you can give us, the more chance we have of successfully investigating the case.

The following information would be helpful to your report:

• the name and address of the people you suspect of fraud
• what they look like
• what type of fraud you suspect
• details about their daily habits, such as times they leave the house
• details about any vehicles regularly parked at the property
• details about their partner if you suspect they have not notified us they are living with someone

For more information please read our fraud strategy or sanction policy or download the guide to fraud leaflet at www.benefits-leaftlets.org

Equality Impact Assessment

An equality impact assessment (EIA) is a systematic and thorough way of finding out whether a policy or service affects different groups of people in different ways. It is part of the normal policy making / policy review process.

View the Equality Impact Assessment of the Benefit Fraud Sanction Policy

Last updated: 23 January 2012