INVESTIGATORS checking up on benefit fraudsters saved Blackburn and Darwen council taxpayers more than £1million in the last 12 months.

The council's benefits investigations unit discovered and corrected wrongly paid benefits of £938,236 up to February -- the equivalent of £1,050,000 for the full financial year.

The department, which also passes information about benefit cheats to the Department of Social Security, costs about £200,000 annually to run.

It was so successful last year that the Government will pay a £168,000 bonus to the council for its work in saving taxpayers' cash.

In a report to the finance service committee, Jim Barwise, head of the council's internal audit department, said officers investigated 2,145 cases in the first 11 months and found 607 cases of deliberate fraud, amounting to benefits overpayments of £349,801.

Remaining overpayments of housing benefits and council tax rebates were due to genuine misunderstandings or administrative errors. Almost half the fraudsters were people claiming rent for addresses where they did not live, and 175 people pretended to be earning less than they did.

About 100 people did not reveal that another adult helped with the household expenses and 45 pretended they had to pay rent for their own homes to non-existent landlords.

Twenty two landlords claimed housing benefit for non-existent tenants.

The council decided to prosecute in ten cases, amounting to £61,120. Two cases resulted in three-month prison sentences for the offenders and two cases led to fines. The other six cases have not yet come to court.

Mr Barwise said the council had begun a new prosecution policy in July and now brought some smaller prosecutions themselves instead of handing the cases over to the police.

He said: "We want to make it even more difficult for people to defraud the council. The court cases are quite time consuming but we want to take action in the courts."

Blackburn with Darwen's investigation department has agreed to work more closely with the Benefits Agency and other East Lancashire districts.

Another officer will be employed to work from Great Harwood, costing about £20,000, but the extra manpower should lead to savings to taxpayers of another £175,000.

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