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Council fights benefit fraud through voice analysis

Kable

Published: 06 Sep 2007 16:17 BST

Voice-analysis technology is helping Harrow Council to fight housing benefit fraud.

Harrow Council said that a pilot project to combat benefit fraud using voice risk analysis (VRA) technology has saved £110,000, six months into the scheme.

The west London council has been running a year-long pilot of VRA since May to identify fraudulent housing benefit and council tax claims.

VRA is widely used in the insurance industry and works by recognising changes in a person's voice to detect stress. It records voice characteristics at the start of a call and then detects changes during the conversation.

Common indicators that a caller may be lying include hesitating or changing answers to original responses. Staff are alerted to this via an audio system.

Harrow said that a potentially fraudulent claim is not dismissed on the evidence of VRA alone, but taken as an indication that the case may warrant further investigation by the council's benefit fraud team.

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Councillor Paul Osborn, Harrow's cabinet member for strategy and business support, told GC News on Wednesday: "The new technology is helping us work more efficiently, by processing the majority of claimants who are bona fide more quickly, and looking more closely at those who potentially seek to defraud the borough of valuable resources."

Technology for the project is supplied by Capita, with financial backing from the Department for Work and Pensions worth £63,000.

The department estimates that benefit fraudsters stole £700m from public funds in 2006/07 and Harrow identified more than £250,000 in fraudulent claims during this period.

Jobcentre Plus plans to test VRA on its own systems later this year.