Minimising Fraud And Errors In The UK Benefit System
Introduction
The project is tailored to consider the current benefit systems in the UK and give particular considerations to reformations in the Universal Incomes and its replacement with a more transparent Universal Basic Incomes (UBI). Protection of frauds and potential errors associated with the current system of Universal Incomes would be given consideration. Aims, Objectives and scope of the innovation Aims Implementation of Universal Basic Income is essential in reducing fraud and errors that can accompany the current benefit system of the United Kingdom. Scrutinizing the process of implementing UBI as a project would be done to accomplish some aims. As such, basic aims for this project are listed below:
- Reduce fraud and error in the UK benefit systems and ensuring that claimants maintain a good knowledge of what is required of them as customers.
- Introduce new benefit in Universal Basic Income to stabilise the level of payments associated with benefit schemes in the United Kingdom for all beneficiaries.
Scope of the Innovation
The current situation of the income payment system in the United Kingdom faces major lapses that lead to reduction of the efficiencies of Universal Income disbursement process among beneficiaries. Most claimants of the Universal Income proceeds involve in activities that leads to undermining the purpose of the fund. For instance, some claimants have understood that the Universal Income scheme has lapses of fraud. As such, they fill forms that are aimed at defrauding this fund scheme to their own benefits. For instance, the financial year that ended in 16 saw a surge in the overpayments given to fraudulent claimants of the Universal Income scheme in the UK to the tune of £3. 5bn. This surge in the payments to false claims leads to increase in the level of debts that the Universal Income scheme incurs. However, some claimants aren’t aware that they are being defrauded by the Universal Income system of the UK. As such, they record underpayments of their claims. This case was imminent in the financial year that ended in 2016; which saw a drastic fall in actual claims to the tune of £1. 6bn. Such a loss to claimants shows that there is less equity in the disbursement process of the Universal Income benefits to claimants. There is need to provide alternative platform to address the occasional overpayments and underpayments in this benefit system in the UK.
Methodology
There are relevant investigation processes that can be used to analyse the efficiencies of Universal Basic Income implementation process. Making appropriate decisions for sustained development of frameworks for sustaining proper payments of benefits to claimants would be reasonable when different analysis techniques are used. Some of the analysis and operational research methods to be used in this project are discussed in the subsequent paragraphs: Usage of two-strike rating and surveys are some of investigative processes that can be used by DWP to enhance transparency and equity in the payment process of benefits associated with Universal Basic Incomes. Usage of a two-strike rating would occur when a claimant involves in fraud in two occasions. In case it’s established that a claimant has committed fraudulent claims amounting to overpayments; their details are deleted in the DWP’s records. Secondary data will form the main source of information that will be used to compile this project. The aim of using secondary data is to ensure that official records are used to formulate information that can be used by government to formulate a social policy that can enable citizens to have a sense of positive benefits from the benefit scheme of Universal Basic Income. Specifically, government websites containing different forms of benefit schemes would be used to gather information that can be used to determine the level of fraudulent payments that accompany benefit systems in the UK. Official government websites to be chosen must be non-partisan and must provide accurate information on the nature, magnitude and rationale for disbursement of Universal Incomes to citizens as of the time when the document was compiled.
Moreover, the use of information from local councils and DWP’s records for the financial years; 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 will be used to gather more accurate information on the scale of overpayments that the DWP makes due to fraudulent activities of different claimants in the UK. Retrieval of information from these official government records can assist in ascertaining the actual losses with actual accompanying figures that can enable the decision makers to accept the introduction and use of Universal Basic Incomes as opposed to Universal Income systems used currently in the UK. Once facts that are considered official are used; then it’s possible to convince decision makers to realise that the current system is defrauding the disadvantaged members of the society and promoting the high class to benefit more from the social benefit scheme. Secondary data tends to be readily available and tailored to meet specific objective of a project. This is why, secondary data have been chosen over primary data. Higher levels of biasness and misinformation concerning activities of the government can lead to collection of wrong data if primary sources are used to collect information. As such, secondary data would be paramount in eliminating doubts and providing facts and figures from official government records. However, data analysis will be used to determine individual clusters that face higher levels of errors concerning disbursements of Universal Incomes from DWP’s system. Once demographic and geographic information is obtained; it will be easier to develop thresholds that can enable sealing of information to enable affected individuals to adhere to the principle of equity in allocation of benefits from DWP’s benefit disbursement system. More robust system can contain elements of Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme; it which all citizens regardless of their demography and geographical locations within the UK, receives equal and regular remittance for managing their upkeep.
Literature Review
Welfare reforms are the only possible intervention plans to stabilise and equalise Universal payments and reduce frauds and errors associated with the disbursement process of this fund. Reduction of losses to the tune of £5. 8bn would be possible if errors committed when advancing payments to fraudulent claimants of Universal Incomes are addressed appropriately. Most customer of DWP must have a proper understanding of their roles and outline clear investigations of how they can receive accurate payments from the council concerning Universal Incomes. Attempts to provide a Universal Basic Income would be a critical pointer to providing accurate and timely payments to beneficiaries of Universal Income scheme. The Universal Credit problems of not addressing equitable payments and increasing the level of debts can be addressed by introducing and implementing Universal Basic Payments. This payment scheme should equally applicable to all citizens to allow them meet their basic needs and it reduces chances of variations in payments advanced to different claimants. Once the UK citizens receive positive incomes from the equitable payment system of the UBI; they can address their needs as appropriate as opposed to receiving different amounts from the same benefit kitty. Reduction of potential debts accrued by the benefit system implies that the government can accumulate sufficient funds to provide every eligible citizen with regular remuneration to enable them meet their routine expenses.
SWOT Analysis of UBI
Strengths of UBI include: ability to elevate individuals from higher level of poverty in the UK and to ensure that beneficiaries have the ability to meet their needs of essential commodities. These strengths are vested in the fact that the UBI is provided on an equal ground to all beneficiaries at similar time thus allowing them to meet their needs within the stipulated timeframe.
However, some of the weaknesses of the UBI include: openness to fraud and inability to address all the essential needs for its beneficiaries.
Opportunities that confound the UBI include its acceptability to wider range of beneficiaries and ability of the government to implement it through effective taxation.
However, some of the threats that UBI encounters include exposure to fraudulent claimants and deterring its implementation since due to increased rates of taxes to meet the UBI’s needs.
Results
Results generated from the UBI shows that 35% of the fund does to frauds and doesn’t effectively reduce chances of poverty as show in the diagram below: Discussion The results above shows that most funds placed under UBI go to waste thus watering the purpose for which the fund was established. A staggering 35% of incomes would be grate and have positive impact for the beneficiaries if it were put in a positive financial management process. Effective deletion of fraudulent claimants can lead to serious financial losses since most claimants could have accrued huge fraudulent incomes and might be unable to repay for such losses that they levy on DWP’s financial database. Moreover, excess amount of resources can be used to track individual claimants leading to overall losses on the part of DWP. Debts that occur due to these double losses can escalate beyond the required limits when the two-strike rating is done for all members benefiting from universal income schemes.
Conclusions
In conclusion, making sure that UBI is fully implemented would be critical for the development of a fraud free welfare system in the UK. Moreover, resource requirements for implementing UBI program includes public awareness resources such as finances for advancing UBI information on local Television Networks and Newspapers such as Sunday Times. Public halls and public address systems too can be used to advance the message to the public in social gathering such as churches and restaurants. Campaigns for advancing the need to implement UBI should be advanced through creative messaging that can attract the attention of the public through various channels above. Proposals plus the financial plans and impacts of implementing UBI as a replacement to the current benefit system in the UK would be presented as a copy to DWP. The government can scrutinise its particulars and weigh the benefits and cons to determine a need for referendum to replace current benefit system in the UK with UBI. In case the majority approves this plan then UBI would be implemented to reduce frauds and errors that occur in the current benefit systems in the UK.
Business Options & Implementation
Plan Reducing frauds and errors that occur in the payments of the benefit systems to claimants can be achieved through a variety of business options. Options to be undertaken are aimed at ensuring that all members of the public are accorded the right amount of benefits that can allow them to feel cared for and protected by the government of the day. There are three possible options that can be undertaken to ensure that fraud and errors are reduced in the case of benefit disbursement process among the UK’s citizens. Such options are discussed in the subsequent sections with effective elaboration: Implementation of a New Payment System of Universal Basic Income The best option of reducing frauds and errors in the benefit advancement to citizens in the UK would be the use of Universal Basic Income (UBI). This type of income should be regular and predictable by the claimants. The source of this remuneration should be government or any other government institution that allows citizens to have social security. The amounts advanced to citizens as UBI should contain little conditions since it should be universal in nature. Even employed individuals should receive the equitable share from the UBI program the same way as their unemployed counterparts receive from the state. Similarity of the amounts advanced to individuals through UBI program would be a platform that allows it to be safe and free from fraud. This implies that no individuals can claim more cash or repeated amounts of payment from the DWP against the prescribed amount of incomes payable dictated by the government. Most claimants of this benefit income would have capacity to meet their regular expenses especially those tailored to meet the routine/ basic needs of individuals. Providing these benefit incomes on an established date would make it common to all citizens and none of the citizens would have undue advantage from UBI incomes. In this case, solving frauds and errors that surrounds the current Universal Income scheme would be possible since individuals have an established knowledge of the actual amount and date when a regular income from UBI is to be advanced to their accounts. Developing an automatic fraud detection app for the Universal Income Benefit In case the government; through DWP, realises that introducing a Universal Basic Income would have a negative impact on the economy then it can design an automatic application that detects frauds and errors in the payments of Universal Incomes to claimants. An automatic fraud detection app; should be fed with data and information from all claimants of the Universal Income. Security features such as fingerprints and voice recognition should be used to advance the level of social security fund protection.
The ratio of the amounts that each claimant should be paid per month should be fed into the system. Once all claimants include their biometric particulars in the system; they can have justified claims since the system can detect overpayments and underpayments advanced to different claimants per unit time. All claimants must provide their biometric details for verification by the fraud detection app before the system allows them to credit their bank accounts with the benefits from the Universal Income. Alongside the UBI framework; the biometric fraud detection app would serve as a better tool for detecting and deterring fraud in the system of Universal Income disbursement scheme. Backup data contained in the UK’s biometric app for Universal Income should be contained in a remote serve to reduce attempts to hack the system by possible malicious employees managing the app. These steps would enable DWP to have a stable measure of controlling all cash flows associated with Universal Incomes and its advancement to the public through a seriously tamper proof fraud biometric fraud detection application. Development of three step password scheme that reduces fraud and errors
The second option that DWP can implement to reduce the level of errors and fraud in the Universal Income scheme is usage of three step passwords. The first password identifies the claimant and the amount claimed is expressed online for the second approval. The second approval is done by regional agent of DWP. The agents must be aware of all claimants that requests for claims of the payments from their database. Records of all claimants must be stored including all the previous payments advanced to them. In case the regional DWP agents realise that there is an overpayment for the previous month; they can deduct the amounts paid overdue and deduct its face value for making the subsequent payments. Once the regional agents realise that the claims requested by a claimant are valid, they also insert their password for actual approval of the payment to be acknowledged on the claimants’ accounts. In case of any suspicion, then the claimant can check and confirm their payment details from DWP’s regional offices and make changes on their Universal Income benefit systems. The last passwords must be appended by the respective financial institutions through which the DWP chooses to advance payments to claimants. Records of paper trail for various transactions are stored in the bank’s database; as such the banks can open special accounts group for reception and advancement of payments of Universal Incomes to claimants. Automatic records for individual claimants can be retrieved and any suspicion can be detected by the bank through its paper trails). In case the claims are valid then the bank can authorise release of Universal Incomes to claimants. This option for detecting fraud and averting errors requires partnership between the DWP and financial institutions that enhances transfer of cash from DWP’s accounts to claimants’ accounts. Provision of accurate records that are synchronized can be possible when scrutiny is allowed to be undertaken by three different parties before Universal Incomes are released to claimants. Change Management/ Stakeholder Management Different stakeholders will benefit differently from the proposed introduction of UBI as a replacement for many benefit schemes available in the UK. The main stakeholder is the government of the UK represented by the DWP organisation/ department. The second stakeholder is the general public who forms part of the claimants. The government though doesn’t make profits, will reduce its debt levels since overpayments due to frauds of the current system will be eradicated through the implementation of UBI.
The second stakeholder (general public) would benefit in that they would have a stable social security fund that works like a pension. This regular social security fund payable through UBI; would be essential in that it would enable the poor to meet their basic needs and the rich will have a chance to cater for their basic needs alongside their luxurious expenses without fear of capping of their social security incomes due to increased earnings. There could be barriers in implementing the change from Universal Incomes to Universal Basic Income proposal. However, different stakeholders would be assisted to overcome barriers of implementing UBI as follows. Firstly, the government would be encouraged to protect their poor citizens from fraudulent individuals by unifying benefits to a single system. Further, example of current trials of UBI advanced in Finland would be provided to DWP as a recommendation and evidence for possibility of introducing the same to the UK. The second stakeholders who are the claimants would be advised that UBI is like a pension that the government advance to all its citizens. This plan would be categorised as a right for citizens to meet their basic needs thus can be supported by general public.
