Bill to fight against social fraud: good measures proposed by the Senate

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Senator Nathalie Goulet, co-author with MP Carole Grandjean of a parliamentary report on social fraud, presented to the Senate a bill on the subject.

Thursday March 11, the Senate adopted the text in first reading before sending the proposal to the National Assembly ... except that the government which is not at the initiative, has already indicated, via Olivier Dussopt, Minister of Accounts public, that the measures to combat social fraud posed "

a certain number of difficulties

" but "

a necessarily useful debate

".

Read also: Olivier Dussopt tackles social fraud

However, it is urgent to get out of the endless debates and tackle social fraud head-on, just like tax fraud.

The senator assures him:

"It is not a question of a fraud of the poor, it is not a question either of stigmatizing foreigners, it is a question of fraud in organized networks"

and the financial stakes are colossal for public finances: 20 billion euros minimum including 10 billion only on non-contributory benefits, or social minima such as the RSA.

Read also: What are the real figures of social fraud?

The first common sense measure proposed by the Senate, adapting a measure to combat tax fraud to social fraud with the experimentation, over 3 years, of collecting user data on social networks.

The text then tackles the problem of retirement pensions paid abroad and wants to secure the data of life certificates, via biometrics and by concluding agreements with pension organizations in foreign states.

Indeed, the Cnav estimates that fraud linked to the taking into account of deaths is 1% out of 11 million people, or 110,000 fraud in death.

Moreover, the senators foresee that in case of doubt, it will now be possible to ask a beneficiary born outside the European Union to physically come and have their documents checked when registering in the National Directory for the Identification of Natural Persons. (RNIPP).

Finally, social benefits could only be paid into a French or European bank account.

Streamline data exchange

The senators also wish to facilitate the exchange of data between social organizations, in particular concerning the APL between the CAF and the tax services in order to verify the income with the lessor of housing attached to the APL.

They also propose the publication, 6 months after the adoption of the law, of an inventory of cross-border cooperation in the fight against social fraud.

Finally, since healthcare professionals represent half of the fraud detected and avoided (such as fraud involving fictitious acts, fraud on sick leave of convenience, etc.) in the Sickness branch (i.e. 136.4 million out of 286.7 million in 2019), the text provides for the decommissioning of doctors guilty of fraud.

On the same subject, the government is also planning the generalization of electronic prescription by 2024 in order to limit false prescriptions.

Common sense measures therefore… which follow a series of measures announced by the government in February.

The government then asked Social Security to carry out a fraud risk mapping, as well as an annual report, for each social body, of “the

efforts made in terms of the fight against fraud

”.

This is good but it already exists in part and it continues in the inventory of fixtures

Read also: Social security: two parliamentarians want to strengthen the fight against fraud

More concretely, it is also planned to finally cross-reference the social, tax and banking files of users, in particular to identify the holders of vital cards who do not reside 6 months of the year on the national territory and / or the holders. of several vital cards.

As a reminder: 1.8 million excess vital cards are still circulating.

It is also planned that the administration can search the beneficiaries in the national file of bank accounts (Ficoba) in order to verify their situation.

Huge complexity of our social protection system

If all these measures go in the right direction, they will be far from sufficient to put an end to the immense complexity of our social protection system: more than 110 aid, for as many administrative procedures with 330 counters and funds.

It is in this complexity that fraud, non-recourse and administrative errors that cost us dearly thrive.

The two essential measures are still missing to put an end to the massive social fraud that is rampant: the biometric vital card and the single social allowance capped, taxable, issued and controlled by Bercy.

Read also: Would a biometric vital card make it possible to fight against social fraud?

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