Is fraud endemic in our society ?

In writing this blog and other legal blogs, I find myself reading about many legal topics, but one area which always interests me is fraud. There seems to be more and more of it and it seems to be seeping deeper and deeper into society.

The worrying thing is that fraud, which has always been around in society, seems to be being carried out by more and more of the general population. There is almost a tangible erosion in moral standards, an attitude that if you can “get away with it and Blogs is doing it, why not me”.

If this trend continues, the lines between right and wrong become more and more blurred and society will suffer. We already all suffer from fraud, either because money lost at the Government level through fraud means higher taxes or money unavailable for other welfare services or in the private sector, it filters through to higher insurance premiums as has been seen in car insurance due to unprecedented personal injury fraud.

In the latest example of the fraud issue, there is a growing issue of council tenants sub-letting homes. The scale of the problem is estimated at 50,000 people unlawfully sub-letting their council homes.

It appears that the Government are planning to get tough on this type of fraud. Reforms are apparently planned whereby if fraud is detected the Local Authority will be able to cancel the tenancy, evict the tenant and a prison sentence could also be the result.

These potential changes would be very welcome, as it is clear that we have reached the point where a stick rather than a carrot is needed. At present, the unlawful sub-letting has no criminal penalty, is believed to cost around £5 billion a year and there are 1.8 million families waiting for a council home.