If you plan to defraud the benefits system, Bradford is not the place to try to do it. That is the message coming loud and clear from the success of the Benefits Agency investigations team which has been operating in the city for the past two years.

Its first year as a pilot scheme was deemed such a success that it has been continued, to excellent effect. Because of the 1998 crackdown on benefits swindlers in the district, taxpayers have been saved more than £20 million - an increase of 17 per cent on the money saved during the pilot year.

The scale of the deception is demonstrated by the sums involved in some of the categories: £500,000 from "instrument of payment" fraud, where people misuse giros or orders books; £400,000 from frauds involving employers' collusion, where employees are paid low salaries and encouraged by bosses to make benefits claims.

There were more than 100 prosecutions and a further 30 cautions. Yet even so, there is no doubt a great deal more fraud waiting to be unearthed.

The team is determined to press on with its investigations, working closely with Bradford Council to flush out the offenders. It has already had a lot of help from the public, through anonymous tip-offs. It needs that spirit of co-operation to continue.

To report a neighbour who you know to be cheating the system is not to "grass". It is to help to ensure that benefits money goes where it is meant to go - to those who genuinely need it - rather than being siphoned off by cheats.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.