The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, John Hutton, announced a pilot of a new process involving groundbreaking technology to catch out benefit thieves, and improve services for benefit customers.
Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) technology enables trained operators to identify suspect cases at the start of a claim, helping to keep fraud out of the benefit system.
The technology is currently used successfully in the insurance industry; it analyses changes in a caller's voice, giving an indication of the level of risk. These changes are measured against the caller's "normal" voice, which is recorded at the beginning of the phone call, while ensuring that nervousness or shyness is not a trigger. If, during the pilot, benefit staff assess the answers as suspicious then the caller may be asked to provide further evidence to support their claim.
The aim is to provide a quicker, more efficient service for the majority of customers, as staff will be able to accurately validate a customer's information during a phone conversation.
Harrow Council will pilot the system for reviews of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit claims. In addition to the pilot by Harrow Council, Jobcentre Plus will test how VRA works with is own systems later in the year.
John Hutton said:
"The vast majority of people who receive benefits are genuinely entitled to them. However, there is a minority who are intent on stealing money from those who need it most.
"This technology-based process aims to tackle these fraudsters while speeding up claims and improving customer service for the honest majority.
"We have already made massive reductions in benefit fraud - cutting it by nearly two thirds since 2001. But we still need to do more to ensure that taxpayers' money always goes to those who need it.
"Our investigators are successfully using sophisticated 21st century techniques to stop criminals. The introduction of this cutting edge technology will be another weapon in the battle against benefit fraud.
"Harrow Council is already recognised as providing one of the best Housing Benefit services in the UK and I welcome its willingness to pilot this innovative technique to make further improvements."
The DWP is funding the pilot in Harrow Council. Capita Group, in conjunction with Digilog UK, is assisting in the development and implementation of the pilot, which involves supplying the system, and advising on its use and training.
Calls are handled by operators trained in intelligent questioning and various forms of behavioural analysis, which allows them to assess the level of risk in the conversation. In addition, Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) technology is used to support the operator's analysis. The technology analyses changes in voice frequency and performs thousands of mathematical calculations, resulting in the identification of different categories of emotional content. The patterns associated with these categories allow the technology to identify genuine callers.
At the beginning of each call, the characteristics of a customer's voice frequency are sampled in order to establish a benchmark - taking into account any pre-existing emotions. The benchmark is used during a conversation as a guide for analysing changes in frequency caused by changes in emotions.
