MPs finger "inadequate" IT systems in £2bn benefit fraud clampdown

"Inadequate" IT systems have been blamed by MPs for hindering the Department for Work and Pension's (DWP) battle to tackle an estimated £2bn a year in benefit fraud.

A new report, 'Tackling Benefit Fraud', by Commons watchdog the Public Accounts Committee said the department's disparate systems are causing difficulties in matching and exchanging data and calculating correct benefit payments.

The report said: "The Department's inadequate information technology systems are a further constraint in tackling fraud. Benefit data are held in 20 separate systems with no common access point to all the systems. Consequently staff cannot readily detect incorrect information supplied by customers."

Differing IT systems and standards meant exchanging and matching data is resource intensive and not as cost effective as other methods of fraud prevention and detection, MPs concluded. However, the report accepted that the DWP's IT plans for the next three years will attempt to tackle these problems.

These include an integrated electronic information gathering system for new and repeat claims that will create a single record for each person to prevent people claiming multiple benefits fraudulently.

The department is also identifying new ways of exploiting access to public and private sector information from other departments and organisations to make better use of data matching techniques.

The report said: "The Department now expect to make substantial gains by linking up existing systems, improving their access to customer information and making greater use of data matching, particularly with the Inland Revenue. They should set specific milestones for these improvements, in terms of what benefits they expect to achieve and by when."

MPs also accepted that the department has learned from past problems encountered in delivering new IT systems and is taking and incremental approach rather than a 'big bang' replacement of the main Income Support and other systems.

"Staged improvements appear more realistic than wholesale replacement of existing systems," the report said.