Tag: Public Sector Fraud Authority

Child Benefit action to save £350 million from claimants abroad

Child Benefit will be stripped from tens of thousands of people who have moved abroad in a major clampdown expected to save £350 million

  • A new specialist team is expected to stop over £350 million in Child Benefit fraud and error over the next five years.
  • The move follows a successful pilot where just 15 investigators stopped around £17 million in wrongful payments in under 12 months.
  • Thousands of people who left the UK but carried on claiming Child Benefit have already been removed from the system.

Child Benefit will be stripped from tens of thousands of people who have moved abroad in a major clampdown expected to save £350 million over the next five years.

A new specialist team will use international travel data to track if claimants have gone overseas, so are no longer entitled to the payments.

The move follows a successful pilot which has already removed 2,600 people from the system who had left the UK but continued to claim Child Benefit.

A team of just 15 investigators successfully prevented around £17 million being incorrectly paid out in under 12 months.

The government is rapidly expanding this highly effective unit as part of the Plan for Change. The new team will have over 200 people from next month, sending a clear warning to those trying to scam the system. 

Cabinet Office Minister Georgia Gould said: “This government is putting a stop to people claiming benefits when they aren’t eligible to do so.

“From September, we’ll have ten times as many investigators saving hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money.

“If you’re claiming benefits you’re not entitled to, your time is up.”

Child Benefit is paid to over 6.9 million families, supporting 11.9 million children. It is one of the most widely accessed forms of benefit in the UK and is administered by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

If a claimant is outside the UK for more than eight weeks, Child Benefit payments may stop unless there are exceptional circumstances. Claimants must inform HMRC if they are outside the UK for this length of time or longer.

The pilot was carried out by the Public Sector Fraud Authority, the Home Office and HMRC. Under the Digital Economy Act, they matched a random sample of 200,000 Child Benefit records with international travel data. 

Where the data suggested a claimant had left the country, specialist investigators from HMRC stepped in to perform their own checks before deciding whether benefits were being claimed incorrectly. The pilot was concluded in under 12 months and delivered savings of over one million pounds per investigator.

Alongside tougher checks, this renewed drive will raise awareness of the rules, recognising that some errors are genuine mistakes. Every case is reviewed by a human investigator and HMRC will reach out directly to families as part of any investigation to resolve matters swiftly.

This crackdown on fraud and error ‘protects hardworking families who play by the rules and ensures every pound of taxpayer money goes where it should’.

New ‘fraud squad’ will crack down on criminals who steal taxpayer money

  • The Chancellor has announced that a new fraud squad, recruited from data analytics experts and leading economic crime investigators, will crack down on criminal gangs who rip off the taxpayer.
  • Operational in July and based in the Cabinet Office, the new £25 million “Public Sector Fraud Authority” will double funding for the Government’s central counter fraud capacity.
  • More details of the new fraud squad confirmed at the first meeting of the Chancellor chaired Efficiencies and Value for Money Committee.

A NEW £25 million central government taskforce that will enlist an elite team of experts to crack-down on fraudsters who attempt to steal taxpayers’ cash will be operational by the summer, the Chancellor has announced.

Rishi Sunak unveiled the new Public Sector Fraud Authority, which will be up and running by July, doubling the Government’s central counter fraud capacity.

The new body will recruit leading data analytics experts and economic crime investigators to recover money stolen from Covid support schemes and spot suspicious companies and people seeking Government contracts. Counter fraud experts will also mount mandatory inspections on Whitehall programmes to uncover vulnerabilities.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak said: “We will chase down fraudsters who rip off the taxpayer. This elite fraud squad, backed by £25 million, will ensure the latest counter fraud techniques are being used to track down these criminals.

“People are rightly furious that fraudsters took advantage of our vital Covid support schemes, and we are acting to make sure they pay the price.”

Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Hardworking taxpayers must and will be protected. Anyone who tries to defraud the public purse will know that we as a government are coming for them and we are going to put them behind bars.”

Recruitment for the Chief Executive of the Public Sector Fraud Authority will start in the coming weeks, with candidates picked from leading counter fraud experts. The new CEO will answer directly to the Chancellor and the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency.

Mr Sunak unveil details of the new counter fraud squad when he chaired the first meeting of the government’s new Efficiencies and Value for Money Committee on Thursday, set up at the request of the Prime Minister.

At the committee the Chancellor also launched the Government’s Plan for Protecting the Taxpayer to cut waste by slashing the Government’s property bill, doubling the NHS efficiencies target, reducing non-front line civil service head count, as well as “quango” budgets and cracking down on fraud and error.

The committee is chaired by the Chancellor and deputy co-chaired by Simon Clarke, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Jacob Rees-Mogg, Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency.

The full membership of the committee, confirmed today, is Steve Barclay, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Oliver Dowden, Minister without Portfolio and Michael Ellis, Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office.