Report - Guardian

106 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005identity database, the introduction of UK identity cards will have a smallerimpact on money laundering than the government envisions. There are alsoserious questions of practicality, given that so many transactions are now carriedout online.- To the extent that identification information is required by financial institutions,fraudsters will still be able to launder money based on the use of forged or stolenidentity cards from a foreign country. Once again, UK identity cards may havelittle impact on these figures.Department of HealthThe Cabinet Office registers a loss of £750,000 for the Department of Health, yet it isentirely unclear from the report what this figure relates to. The report admits that thereare no reliable figures for avoiding NHS payments or accessing NHS services by nonentitledpeople using the identities of entitled people. A recent report by the Directorateof Counter-fraud Services is cited, which found incidence of false identities at aroundthe 0.2% mark, yet there is no indication of whether this figure was due to fraud orsimple human error.The Cabinet Office report further claims that a:“major problem … is where contractors … claim costs for treatingpatients who do not exist or who are no longer registered at thatpractice.”Yet there are no figures, or even estimates, available for this type of fraud. Once again,there is plenty of room for human error, rather than fraud, for example a clerical error inomitting to clear a patient’s records once he has moved or is deceased. And while 2816patients are known to have attempted to register with more than one GP to obtainmultiple prescriptions, there is no suggestion of identity fraud in these figures. Ratherthis involves patients attempting to register more than once, most likely under a realname.Department for Work and PensionsNo figures are presented for most types of benefit fraud, but the report estimates overallwelfare fraud at between £2bn and £5bn. This is an extremely wide estimate, suggestingthat little credence can be given to these figures. The report then takes the mid-point,£3.5bn, as the base estimate for overall welfare fraud and then arbitrarily selects a figureof 1% as an estimate for the level of identity fraud associated with general welfarefraud. There is no justification given for this figure of 1%, other than that it seems‘reasonable’. This leads the authors of the report to give a figure of £35 million foridentity-related welfare fraud.Once again, the underlying figures are questionable. Nevertheless, it is likely that someamount of welfare fraud is committed on the basis of a false identity. 289 In evidence tothe Home Affairs Committee, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department ofWork and Pensions, Chris Pond MP, confirmed that false identity represented a tiny289 A report by John Lettice ‘UK ID scheme rides again, as biggest ID fraud of them all’ 25 May 2005 comes to thesame conclusion. Available at www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/25/id_bill_mk2_fraud_con/html