BRUM WELCOMES LIE DETECTORS FOR BENEFIT CHEATS

08-05-2008

Birmingham City Council has welcomed the extension of so-called “lie detectors” to identify housing benefit cheats after piloting the technology last year. The government has announced that funds will made available to extend the scheme nationwide.

The technology works by alerting phone operators to changes in the frequency of claimants’ voices.

Those assessed as “high risk” are then subject to further investigation, but don’t have their benefits cut unless further evidence comes to light.

During the Birmingham trial, Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) was used on 2,656 benefit applicants – and 94% of them emerged as “low risk” and given their due without question.

The remainder were also paid promptly - but asked to provide further information by post or through a home visit.

Cllr Paul Tilsley, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “We were very pleased with the way this technology worked for us in Birmingham and so were our customers, 98 per cent of whom told us they were satisfied or very satisfied with the process.

“It was a win-win situation all round – customers get their claims dealt with much more quickly and accurately via a 20 minute phone call, there is very little or no form filling or bureaucracy and it is very much more efficient from a cost point of view.

“We will certainly be expressing our interest in continuing our involvement.”

As Tilsley suggests, customer feedback was positive – of those surveyed, 93 per cent felt that it was better than claiming by post (only one per cent thought it worse) and 85 per cent said they would choose to have their benefit checked in this way in the future compared to four per cent who would choose to go back to a postal review.

Not everyone is convinced though. United States blogger The Language Guy reports on an experiment which shows the technology in a less flattering light (http://thelanguageguy.blogspot.com/2007/04/voice-risk-analysis.html).

He’s uncovered a study of five VRA machines which indicate that they adjudged 37.3 per cent of true statements to be false; and 36.5 per cent of false statements were adjudged to be true. He suggests that they are more reliable than flipping a coin - but not much.

On that evidence, accomplished liars will be able to breeze through the system and keep ripping off honest taxpayers for years to come.

Does VRA technology work? Is it a fair way to assess benefit applicants? Leave a comment on The Stirrer Forum.