Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of staff working on fraud and error in his Department work on (a) preventing fraud and error upfront and (b) detecting fraud and error after it has happened.

Tackling loss is a key priority for DWP and every member of staff undertakes mandatory annual fraud and error training.

Outside of this, we secured an additional £900 million in recent Spending Rounds which enabled us to enhance both our fraud and error prevention and detection capabilities. This includes our Targeted Case Review team which will review millions of Universal Credit claims for incorrectness.

As of the 31^st March, our Targeted Case Review team currently has 3,100 Full Time equivalent agents reviewing Universal Credit claims.

As of the 31^st March, our Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt Directorate (which includes National Insurance allocation and Debt Management functions) has 8,700 Full Time Equivalent employees, of which 1,400 are working directly on the prevention of fraud and error, with 1,700 working on detection of fraud and error after it has happened.

To note - all figures have been rounded.