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Leila Nathoo, a political correspondent, alongside political reporter Becky Morton, have reported on the government’s forthcoming plans to crack down on individuals who continue to claim child benefit after departing the UK. With an estimated £350m in savings projected over the next five years, claimants residing outside the UK for more than eight weeks will generally no longer qualify for the benefit unless under exceptional circumstances. The implementation of a new specialist team utilizing travel data to monitor claimants abroad and assess their entitlement to payments resulted from a successful pilot that prevented child benefit from being erroneously paid to 2,600 individuals who had left the UK.
Furthermore, a team of 15 investigators halted around £17m in incorrect payments within less than 12 months, setting the stage for over 200 individuals to join the taskforce next month. The government aims to foster awareness of the regulations to prevent inadvertent benefit claims when individuals are overseas for an extended period, given that child benefit represents one of the most commonly accessed benefits in the UK with over 6.9 million families receiving it. Moreover, the government plans to extend its scrutiny to other benefits claimed internationally to potentially facilitate additional monetary recoups.
Despite a recent uptick in benefit fraud amid the pandemic, cumulative benefit fraud totals have begun to decline in recent times due to government initiatives addressing the issue head-on. As per data from the Department for Work and Pensions, a staggering £6.5bn in benefit overpayments linked to fraud occurred during the 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to 2.2% of all benefit expenditure, with higher overpayment rates observed for means-tested benefits like Universal Credit. Cabinet Office Minister Georgia Gould affirmed the government’s commitment to preventing unauthorized benefit claims, asserting that the intensified investigative efforts set to commence in September will yield substantial taxpayer savings.
The pilot initiative conducted by the Public Sector Fraud Authority, the Home Office, and HMRC involved cross-referencing 200,000 child benefit records with international travel data in accordance with the Digital Economy Act 2017. This framework facilitated the detection of individuals potentially claiming benefits inaccurately upon departure from the UK, prompting further investigations by HMRC officials. While individual recoveries may not trigger prosecutions given the nominal fraud amounts involved, each case undergoes meticulous scrutiny by human investigators, illustrating the thoroughness of the government’s benefit fraud prevention strategy
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