BRITAIN:British government minister Peter Hain is to face a fresh attack on his competence next week with the publication of a National Audit Office report saying his ministry has failed to tackle benefit fraud and errors which are costing taxpayers more than £2.5bn (€3.36bn) a year.
The works and pensions secretary, criticised by the prime minister, Gordon Brown, for "incompetence" over his failure to register donations to his failed deputy leadership campaign, will have to defend his department for not having cost-effective initiatives to deter, detect and investigate fraud.
The report looks at the effectiveness of the ministry's anti-fraud advertising, investigation procedures, data matching with national insurance contributions, national benefit fraud hotline, and prosecutions.
The report will highlight the failure to recover millions of pounds from claimants who have fraudulently received benefits or have been paid too much money by mistake. The one glimmer of hope is that recorded fraud appears to be beginning to drop.
His department's Jobcentre Plus is in the centre of a row over how the government should tackle benefit fraud.
Senior managers have split the fraud investigation work into two divisions - customer compliance and investigation. The first asks people to return money. The second concentrates on big urban areas, leaving large areas of rural England where investigators rarely check for fraud.
A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union said yesterday: "Basically this decision allows fraudsters in some areas of the country to get away with it.
"By cutting the staff tackling fraud and closing down Jobcentre Plus offices in small- and medium-sized towns, inspectors rarely visit some parts of the country to check on benefit fraud."
The ministry will have argued that putting big urban areas at the forefront of benefit fraud investigation makes it easier to spot organised gangs targeting benefit offices with fraudulent claims.
Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office, has long believed that the benefit system is so complex it makes it easy for fraud to be perpetrated or mistakes to be made.