RELIEF FRAUDS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19130, 26 September 1936, Page 3

RELIEF FRAUDS

PEW GISBORNE CASES ONLY TWO REACH COURT EFFECTIVE SAFEGCARDS The. Gisborne case this week of a man who secured £l7O from the Employment Department in. excess of what, he was entitled to was only the second relief fraud case which has reached the court from this district. Other minor cases were detected, but were dealt with by the issue of warntugs from officers' of the department, and it was found that in those instances the warnings were effective. In other .parts of New- Zealand, however, there have been many cases during ilia past lew months of men who have received relief or sustenance payments in excess ot the amount to which they were entitled, the result either of their failure to disclose the correct total of their private earnings or of making false declarations. PRKVTOUS GISBORNE CASE

Usually the amount, of the excess payment has been a, few pounds, but the case in Gisborne this week was one in which a single man admitted that he had defrauded the Labour Department of £l7O by representing that lie was a married man with four children.

In the previous Gisborne case, the man failed to disclose, his full private earnings, and the excess payment, was only £6, It would appear that such frauds are easily accomplished, but the system of checking and investigation now adopted by the department makes it almost impossible for the imposture to be carried on for any great period, and only those who are able to employ great ingenuity or are willing to take dangerous risks can escape for very long. Generally the department succeeds in detecting the fraud.

The practice of the department is to get, a. declaration from the man in receipt of relief in which he shows his income from all sources. On this information the amount of sustenance to he paid is assessed in terms of a scale which is brought under the notice of every applicant; who is required to slate the names of any employers, PERIODICAL CHECK There ia then ft periodical check to verify the statements made, but where! a. man consistently fails to mention tho name of an employer by whom he may liave. been given intermittent work, one valuable, check is missing. However, as employers have given valuable assistance to the officers of the department in. supplying details of men they have employed, the .system of checking has enabled the officers to detect a number of old offences, some even as far back as last year. With the methods now employed the number of evasions is gradually decreasing and most of those dealt with recently are of fairly old standing. Various methods are employed by men to conceal the fact that they are ineligible, for the full scale relief payments. Cases have been discovered of men using two different names —one for the purpose of securing private employment and the other for obtaining unemployment relief. There have also hecn cases of men obtaining two levy hooks. In a southern city a member of the department's staff was served in a shop by a man whose face seemed familiar, and on investigation it was found that the man was a full-time employee of the shop and had also been drawing i sustenance. NEW METHODS In another instance (lie driver of a lorry was recognised as a man. who was also being paid full-scale sustenance although he was being paid the. award rate by his employer. The more common cases are those of men who are intermittently employed, but who understate, their private earnings when applying for sustenance. New methods of evasion are continually coining under the notice of the officers of (he depart, ment, who in turn devise new safeguards, so (hat the protective system is steadily being strengthened. Men in receipt- of relief are required to report.! once a week and to call later in the week for their payments. II is known that some, men in regular employment found an excuse to leave (heir place of employment long enough to make these call's, but by periodically changing the reporting and pay days (he department has made it more difficult for this form of deceit to he practised. Action is usually taken by the department under the Employment Promotion Act, which provides that a fine of £IOO may be, imposed. In cases where this does not act as a deterrent or where the offence is of a more serious nature, the police are asked to proceed under tho Crimes Act. However, in minor cases action is not always taken, but the offender is at least required to refund the excess amount he has. received. Fines ranging from £2 lo £2O with costs have been imposed from time to time, £I2OO AND SUSTENANCE There has always been strenuons_ objection on the part of the spokesmen for unemployed organisations _to the forms which men seeking relief have been required to complete. These forms were designed to check tho abuses which have been an unpleasant feature of sustenance and relief payments, and experience! lias shown that they are necessary. Although (lie Government has redrafted these forms, deleting a number of tho questions which were formerly considered necessary, the difficulties in the work of administration of these funds are now well recognised, and recently the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, said that one man whose case had heen investigated had earned £I2OO while he was drawing sustenance. He agreed that this was an extreme ease, but he said there were other men receiving sustenance who had been earning £ls to £2O a. month. "Then we are fold by representalives of the unemployed th.it we should allow men fo draw sustenance without, filling in ! the form each week," he added.