Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many cases were recorded in central government of the inappropriate use of electronic purchasing cards in (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22; and how many of those cases resulted in criminal prosecutions.

Each department's finance team is responsible for the monitoring and oversight of electronic purchasing cards issued by their department. Where misappropriation occurs consideration should be given to Civil Service procedures. If this leads to the dismissal of a Civil Servant, cases may be referred to the Internal Fraud Hub, run by the Public Sector Fraud Authority.

For the period in question, there were no reported cases of internal misuse of an electronic purchasing card within the Cabinet Office. There were, however, over this period, a small number of cases of external electronic purchasing card fraud in this period (where an external fraudster has secured credit card information).

Details of these cases were reported to the relevant authorities and all lost funds were recovered by the Cabinet Office in full.