Social Security Benefits: Fraud and Maladministration
(asked on 5th July 2022) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the level of fraud and error in the welfare system.
Answered by
David Rutley
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 13th July 2022
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published 19 May 2022, sets out our plans for reducing the level of fraud and error in the welfare system by:
- Investing in DWPs frontline counter-fraud professionals and data analytics, including recruiting 2,000 trained specialists to review over two million Universal Credit cases.
- Creating new legal powers to investigate potential fraud and punish fraudsters (subject to legislation).
- Bringing together the full force of public and private sectors to keep one step ahead.
The full document can be found at Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The government is investing £1.4bn of funding over the next three years, to combat fraud and error.
We estimate this investment will stop over £2.0bn of loss in fraud and error during this time.