Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-employment Income Support Scheme

(asked on 18th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many claims were excluded or rejected from the (a) Self Employment Income Support Scheme and (b) Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 28th February 2022

The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) were designed to prevent as much fraud as possible before any payments were made, while still quickly supporting those who needed it.

By building automated controls into the digital claim process, HMRC prevented more than 100,000 ineligible or mistaken claims within the Covid-19 schemes, namely CJRS, SEISS, and Eat Out to Help Out. By carrying out pre-payment checks based on risk and intelligence profiles, HMRC also blocked more than 29,000 claims and registrations in 2020-21.

The Government remains committed to cracking down on fraud wherever it arises, which is why the Government has invested over £100 million in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce of 1,265 HMRC staff to combat fraud on the HMRC-administered Covid-19 schemes. This is one of the largest and quickest responses to a fraud risk by HMRC.

The Taskforce is expected to recover £800 million to £1 billion from fraudulent or incorrect payments over the next two years. This builds on the work already done, which saw HMRC recover £536 million in 2020-21.

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