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Benefit fraudsters have been ordered to pay back nearly £1m to Swindon council over the last three years, according to new figures revealed this week. A Freedom of Information request has uncovered that between 2010/11 and this month Swindon Council has managed to recover about £995,114 by tracking down people cheating the system. In 2010/11 the authority caught 59 people, of whom 20 were prosecuted, while the following year 36 people received sanctions, with eight people going in front of a judge. During 2012/13, 37 residents were tracked down, leading to 17 prosecutions. So far this year there have been 14 sanctions, of which nine cases resulted in prosecutions. Sanctions included cautions, administrative penalties and court action. The council reviews allegations made via a fraud hotline and cases that are highlighted by data matching with records held by many different local and central government departments. Officers interview witnesses and people suspected of committing benefit...

Benefit fraud investigations in Kent have risen more than threefold in a year, reports the BBC . Just over 2,000 cases were recorded in 2011, rising to 7,500 in 2012. Part of the increase is attributed to investigators getting more powers to check bank accounts and credit card bills. Fraud manager Mark Lumsden said a lot of the information came from tip-offs via the National Benefit Fraud Hotline, and from data-matching exercises: I suppose it could be the current economic climate, people possibly being driven to that, but a lot of the cases we see is just greed. In 2012, the government put various measures in place to fight benefit fraud including having dedicated teams checking old claims for potential fraud, and taking fraudsters to court to force them to repay the money.

The level of benefit fraud and overpayment identified in Dundee has soared by more than £200,000 in a year . Figures show benefit overpayments found by the city council — including overpayments from the Department for Work and Pensions — totalled £460,632 between April and September. For the same period last year, that figure was £258,145. The figures were revealed in a report by Marjory Stewart, the council’s director of corporate services. She says the targeting of more serious fraud cases by the council and DWP has led to the increase. The report states: The level of benefit overpayments identified as a result of counter-fraud activity has increased in comparison to the previous year. This was mainly due to the strategy by the council and the DWP in targeting the more serious levels of fraud perpetrated against the welfare scheme. The level of sanctions and success rates on case closures decreased. Again, this is mainly due to the focus shifting to investigating the more serious fra...