Social Security Benefits: Fraud
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of recent trends in the level of fraud in the welfare system.
Answered by Andrew Western
Fraud and error in the welfare system has reduced in recent years, from 4.0% in 2021/22 to 3.7% in 2023/24. This is still not good enough, so we are not resting. We agreed £8.6bn of savings at the Autumn Budget 2024, which is the biggest fraud and error package on record, which led the OBR to forecast that we will reduce fraud and error to pre-pandemic levels
The Department assesses the potential implications of fraud trends firstly by dedicating ongoing resource to understand the current fraud landscape, via annual sampling exercises to measure the level of fraud currently in the welfare system*, as well as a range of analysis into current and potential future fraud trends.
Secondly, the Department uses this insight to design strategies to reduce fraud currently in the welfare system and prevent new fraud from entering.
Finally, the Department analyses the potential interactions between fraud and any new policies before they are implemented, to allow for any risks to be identified and mitigated.
*Fraud and error in the benefit system - GOV.UK
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