Spy traps to net benefit cheats cost taxpayers £2.5 million

BENEFIT cheats are being snared in a series of spying operations that have cost council taxpayers more than £2.5 million in five years.

Council bosses are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds every year investigating the fraudsters, including funding covert surveillance.

The figures, which were released under Freedom of Information laws, show officials have carried out eight detailed surveillance operations in the last five years.

The council said the tactics were needed to combat benefit cheats who attempted to scam around 600,000 off the taxpayer in the last year alone.

One of the most recent investigations followed a tip off from a member of the public about a woman who had failed to declare that her partner lived with her and was in full-time employment. Susan Grady, 49, eventually pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining housing and council tax benefit of over 8,000 and had her sentence deferred for three months at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in June.

Following the tip off, the council used surveillance measures to link her partner to the property.

The case was one of 52 reported by the council to the procurator fiscal in the past year, with a further 125 cases being subject to alternative sanctions.

Councillor Phil Wheeler, convener of the council's finance and resources committee, said: "While the majority of claimants are honest, the few who (are not] need to be held to account.

"We will use every means at our disposable to identify those claiming fraudulently, including using data matching, anonymous allegations and working jointly with our colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)."

Benefit cheats risk not only a criminal record, but also the possibility of a fine and even a prison sentence.

In recent years there has been a rise in benefit fraud in Edinburgh, including by people who work but do not declare an income, couples who live together but do not declare having a partner, and those who do not admit to savings. In 2009-10, 44 administrative penalties were imposed - up 47 per cent on a year earlier. A further 53 cases led to a prosecution. Last week, the DWP launched new mobile taskforces to re-examine claims for benefits and tax credits.

Tenant guilty of 64k housing fraud

One of the biggest cases of benefit fraud recorded in the Capital in recent years was that of 36-year-old Nicola Smeaton, who illegally claimed more than 64,000 housing benefit when her partner was the landlord.

Following a 2009 investigation by the Department for Work and Pensions, Smeaton, above, was sentenced to 240 hours of community service. She claimed 64,331 as the sole tenant of a property in Parkhead Crescent, but investigators discovered that her partner was the live-in owner of the property, and secretly filmed them both entering and leaving the home over several weeks.

Smeaton said she had believed her lease agreement was genuine, and insisted that she did not know her partner owned the house. She said her guilty plea reflected her desire to put the matter behind her after two years of stress.