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Failed asylum seekers 'have conned their way into jobs'
Simon McGee Political Editor FAILED asylum seekers have managed to con their way into jobs in the NHS and local councils, according to a new report which shows £111m of taxpayers' money has been dished out as a result of fraud and overpayment.
Others have secured housing benefit, council housing and student loans, according to the Audit Commission's National Fraud Initiative (NFI), which showed a 33 per cent increase in public sector fraud in the two years of 2004 and 2005 compared to 2002 and 2003 in nearly 1,300 public bodies.
There was also a big rise in the amount of fraud relating to payments of pensions to dead OAPs.
The report said asylum seekers "that had exhausted all appeal rights, where they had no right to remain in the UK and were ineligible for public funds" were succeeding in playing the system.
The report, which covers the whole of the UK, involved tracking down suspicious payments by comparing records of who was claiming entitlements such as housing benefits, pensions and student loans.
When checked against lists of failed asylum seekers they found 163 cases of housing benefit paid to foreigners who should have been removed from the country, the first time this figure has been reported.
The Audit Commission told the Yorkshire Post that no figures were available for the other categories of benefits claimed by asylum seekers in the country illegally.
Asked how the fraud was committed, Audit Commission chief executive Steve Bundred would only say it was through "false declarations of some kind".
But the report did cite examples, including the case of Tamilola Banjoko, a Nigerian in his 30s, who admitted charges including those relating to living in council property and possessing a false passport at Manchester Crown Court last July.
In another case revealed by the report, a failed asylum seeker was working for Reading Borough Council, a job she got using forged immigration documents, while claiming housing benefit in nearby Wokingham.
The Ugandan woman, in her late 40s, has since been sacked.
It also revealed that in January last year the Audit Commission agreed a 14-day deadline with the Home Office to speed up how long it takes local authorities to get information about the status of asylum-seeker applications.
The report said: "The status of asylum seeker applications and appeals is extremely fluid, so for 2004-05, a more streamlined protocol was agreed with the Home Office. The protocol meant the up-to-date status of an asylum seeker could be obtained within a 14-day time-frame."
The Immigration and Nationality Directorate removed 178 people as a result of referrals from the fraud initiative, the report said.
The findings bring to more than 300m the frauds detected by the scheme since it started eight years ago.
Mr Bundred said those tempted to steal from public service bodies now had "more chance than ever of being caught".
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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