Such measures sometimes appear to add unnecessary burden to providers without the intended corresponding benefit of preventing fraud, waste, and abuse.
A Conservative MP has insisted he is "totally innocent" of allegations of benefit fraud, after his home was raided by police and he was questioned for three hours.
I can't decide what is most disturbing: that more than 85% of allegations of benefit fraud put forward by the public over the past five years have been false, or that this is about almost 900,000 out of more than a million cases.
Those convicted of benefits fraud, for example by forging documents or claiming payments while self-employed, could be banned from reentering the country for five years.
Perhaps eager to be seen to fulfil its mandate to appear balanced, the corporation has reinforced misperceptions of the prevalence of benefit fraud in various programmes, such as Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford's We All Pay Your Benefits series, and its Future State of Welfare programme.
Those repeatedly convicted of benefit fraud could have their benefits stopped for three years.
This month, Representative Joe Heck, Republican of Nevada, introduced a revised Stolen Valor Act that would make it a crime of fraud to benefit, or intend to benefit, from lying about military awards.
We see it also in the relentless pursuit of benefit fraud while tax dodging of large corporations and high net worth individuals is ignored.
As yet another poll – by YouGov, commissioned by the TUC – proved last year, people seem to hold wildly inaccurate views about the scale of benefit fraud and the proportion of spending that goes on people who cannot find work, and more.
This McCarthy-style reporting of benefit fraud is another example of the government's desire to turn people against the welfare state and to treat sick and disabled people as second-class citizens".
