A £1BILLION bill for housing benefit fraud was shown to the taxpayers today by an official investigation.

And though councils, which administer the benefit for the DSS, are clawing back increasing amounts lost through cheating claims - £1.3million was saved in Blackburn alone last year - nearly £1 in every £10 paid out in housing benefit is down to either fraud or error.

That is enough to put 25,000 more policemen on the beat or for each primary school to be given £50,000.

Clearly, leakage on such a scale needs stemming.

And if so much money is being lost, even the high cost of councils employing fraud-busters must prove value for money if it is reaping increasing savings.

More action is needed on that front.

Also, the benefit could be simplified to reduce loss through error - currently, there are 60 qualifying factors to be taken into account, leading to a high level of mistakes and high administration costs.

But also there must be a strong crime-does-not-pay message delivered to the fraudsters - through a zero tolerance approach on prosecutions and recovery of wrongly-paid benefit.

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