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Ministers told to reveal back-to-work fraud claims
Telegraph reported over the weekend that MPs are urging DWP ministers to come clean over which providers of welfare services have been investigated for fraud and how many of those inquiries led to prosecutions. Last month David Cameron said 125 cases of alleged wrongdoing at various providers have been investigated since April 2006. 11 of those were related to A4e but the Government has refused to divulge details of the other 114 cases.
They say that Margaret Hodge, the chairman of the public accounts committee (PAC), told The Sunday Telegraph: “It’s outrageous. We should be able to follow the taxpayer’s pound wherever it is spent, there have been 125 cases and yet they hide behind this cloak of confidentiality.”
Ms Hodge said it was quite possible that malpractice was widespread within the welfare-to-work industry, following allegations of fraud at A4e, because “the system allowed it”. Even the Coalition’s new scheme, the Work Programme, which is worth £5bn in public contracts, is open to abuse, she said.
Jackie Doyle-Price, Conservative MP for Thurrock and a member of the PAC, agreed that where cases had been settled there was no reason for secrecy. She said: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We should aim for an atmosphere of transparency. The onus is on the contractor to say what they are doing about it.”