Benefit cheats get away with it

Benefit claimants and job seekers could be forced to take lie detector tests as early as next year after an early review of a pilot scheme exposed 126 benefit cheats in just three months, saving one local authority £110,000.

Last May, the Department for Work and Pensions asked Harrow council in London to undertake a year-long, £63,000 pilot of the ground-breaking Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) technology.

What happens when they are caught claiming fraudulently? We can be sure that they probably won’t receive a prison sentence seeing as only 1% of benefit cheats are actually sent to prison while the rest only receive a caution. The lie detector tests might be a good idea if the criminals were actually punished but they aren’t. People will still be willing to try it because they are more than likely to get away with it even if they are caught.

I have a cheaper and more effective method of finding benefit cheats. Simply make them subject to freedom of information after-all taxpayers have a right to know where their money goes.

Once they start claiming benefits put their names and benefits which they are claiming on a website. If their neighbours ever check it they will probably know if they are claiming fraudulently and be able to tell the police.