How can £9.7bn annual DWP fraud and error bill be justified?

Evidence session 

Department for Work and Pensions’ Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 

Wednesday 29 January, 09.30am, Committee Room 6 

Watch live on Parliamentlive.tv 

The cross-party Work and Pensions Committee are likely to grill the Department’s representatives among other things on its historic failure to get fraud and error under control. 

For more than three decades, the Department’s annual accounts have been qualified due to higher than acceptable incidence of fraud and error. The current bill stands at £9.7bn per year. To put that into perspective, that’s more than half of the annual police budget for England and Wales which currently stands at £18.6bn. 

Members of the Committee could also ask about: 

• Underpayments of benefits and state pensions; 

• Pension Credit take up; and 

• the cost and delivery of major programmes such as the Service Modernisation Programme. 

Witnesses 

From 09.30: 

• Sir Peter Schofield KCB, Permanent Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); 

• Neil Couling CB CBE, Director General for Fraud, Disability and Health, and Senior responsible Owner of Universal Credit, DWP; and 

• Catherine Vaughan, Director General, Finance, DWP.