A government fund aimed at reducing fraud and error in
the benefit system was nearly three times oversubscribed by councils. The Fraud
and Error Reduction Incentive Scheme (FERIS), announced by George Osborne in
November, offers financial rewards to local authorities who reduce housing
benefit fraud and error. Earlier in the year, the DWP paid £5.4m to 328 local
authorities for an initial ‘start up’ round of funding. According to DWP
bulletin, a second tranche of FERIS funding received more than £8m in
applications against a fund of £3m. Under the scheme each local authority has
to hit a percentage reduction in fraud and error and is set a baseline to
measure their performance against. Read more on Inside Housing.
