Social Security Benefits: Fraud

Department for Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 28 April 2016.

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Photo of Richard Fuller Richard Fuller Conservative, Bedford

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answers of 8 March 2016 to Questions 30341 and 30342 and with reference to the Answers of 5 December 2013 to Question 179450 and 21 January 2014 to Question 182897, when his Department (a) decided to stop collecting the required information and (b) began to collect information in such a way that it can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Photo of Justin Tomlinson Justin Tomlinson Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Work and Pensions) (Disabled People)

The information requested can only be provided at a disproportionate cost.

For questions 179450 and 182897 volumes of prosecutions and number of errors identified were provided, however these were not all fraud cases, including cases where the error was not deliberate. This did not explicitly answer the enquiry, however was given to provide helpful context. It is not possible to separate cases into those which are a mistake and those where fraud has been accepted without individual case by case analysis.

Again, we cannot directly answer 30341 and 30342 but have provided the below extra information to assist;

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

Total Fraud Investigations (1)

125,140

116,480

171,730

of which total positive outcomes (2)

20,800

20,050

24,600

of which total fraud cases (3)

15,350

12,870

13,600

over which total prosecuted (4)

11,390

8,490

7,150

(1) Total cases investigated by Local Service or complex criminal Investigations.

(2) Total cases where an error has been identified and corrected.

(3) Prosecutions + admin Penalties + cautions: cases where fraud has been proven or accepted.

(4) Cases accepted by CPS for prosecution.

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