Weekly Benefit Saving Scheme a term now talked about with scorn and derision. Unfortunately it has become a scheme that was intended to encourage councils to combat benefit fraud but was used ignominiously by a few councils in much the same way that some claimants use the benefit system.

Much has been said about WBS in the past and most often by myself, but it is worth remembering that WBS did achieve what it was created to do. Council's who claimed that fraud did not exist in their boroughs or districts have changed their position. The question of have they done enough and soon enough is one which will be answered in the fullness of time.

Now the scheme is old battered and becoming unworkable. DSS lawyers, Benefit Fraud Inspectorate lawyers, Audit Commission Lawyers and Fraud practitioners have all picked at the bones.

However, even it's dying days WBS can trigger a heated debate. The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate's strict interpretation is evidently inspiring new LAIOG into considering taking legal advice. There is of course a first time for everything. While District Audit continues to enrage Local Authorities with their unique and somewhat startling interpretation of the law of strict liability crimes.

The thing that has amazed me is the level of near-hypocrisy the system has generated. Those who are responsible for ensuring that councils get it right have often allowed a broad version of the rules in order to support their own causes. This should not really come as a surprise. In a world where a Labour Chancellor cracks down on tax avoidance and the black economy while major party players take full advantage of tax avoidance laws, one can get a full understanding of the realities of putting policy into practice.

WBS though is dying and like many elderly people on the NHS waiting list has had a "Do Not Resuscitate" order placed by its bedside. So what is to take its place.

While it easy to knock the Department, there can be little doubt that those involved in producing a new scheme do want to ensure that the scheme is robust and fair. Of course they stand little chance of the scheme being considered fair. The change from one scheme to another is bound to generate winners and losers. Councils who have skillfully abused the old scheme will seek to ensure that they do not loose their financial gains.

Most practitioners would agree on two points - even if their line managers have a different view, then practitioners rarely have a budget to balance. The first point is that benefit fraud investigation is about ensuring that the benefit system is not abused and used by criminals. The second point is that as we say in North Yorkshire, "You don't get owt f'nowt". The criminal justice system is complicated, generally unjust, and expensive to run. To make any future version of WBS to work, this is the framework in which we have to contend.

The DSS wish to see a system that rewards council for the work that it does

• prevent fraud and error getting into the system in the first place
• to detect and root out fraud that insidiously gets into the system
• to take sensible action against those who defraud system
• to punish fraudsters and deter those who would defraud the system

The scheme therefore should be simple, but not abused by councils themselves.

The Department met with a number of practitioners earlier in the year and a general format started to appear. A number of ideas emerged but the most difficult area is the one of measuring the effectiveness of verification framework (VF). A conceptual idea of measuring VF was established but it did not seem to meet with total agreement.

To measure the effectiveness of VF one has to consider it as a firewall. Claims coming into the benefits system will first encounter the firewall. Either they will get through it they will be bounced off it. Those claims that are bounced will be one of two types. Either they will have a genuine error, i.e. not all the information will be enclosed or the boxes filled in correctly, or they will be fraudulent - incorrect in a material fact or fake, i.e. forged payslips, or undeclared employment.

If claims get through the firewall and are discovered later to be in error this will be for two reasons. Either it should not have got through the firewall in the first place. Local Authority Error, or it will be intentionally fraudulent - good forged payslips, or the claimants circumstance were not as declared on the form.

In principal the department wishes to reward all aspects of prevention and detection. Therefore the new scheme will be modular rewarding each stage.

1. Fraudulent claims bounced by the firewall
2. Fraudulent claims detected in the system
3. Investigative work
4. Punitive Action taken (Caution, Penalty, Obtaining a court listing)
5. Prosecution (successful or otherwise)
6. Recovery of fraudulent overpayments

The amount of money available to the scheme is not clear at the moment. I can not imagine that the department will want to spend more on the scheme than they are spending at present. I imagine that the method of working out a value for each module will be based on the fraudulent overpayment or potential fraudulent overpayment. With nothing better to replace it, the 32 week multiplier is likely to be around for a while yet.

Baselines would then be set on points rather than savings leaving councils to decide how best to focus their fraud work. In this way the more effective VF is the more it contributes to the baseline. Whether councils should be rewarded for exceeding their baselines is debatable. Given that some CFO have seen it as way to make money rather than undertake a civic duty I personally would prefer to see stiff penalties and stonger links to performance indicators as a driving factor. A Benefit Fraud Inspectorate certification scheme could be considered too.

Whatever the final format of the scheme, the Department will need to get the new scheme to ministers before parliament dissolved at the end of July. Consultation should take place over the summer, and into the government system of committees, bills etc in time for announcement and circulars in the early part of 2001 and implementation for 1 April 2001. This is a very tight deadline for all concerned.