Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 9
Sixty-Ninth Report - Tackling fraud and corruption against government
Published 8 Sep 2023
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Tackling fraud and corruption against government All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Most departments are exposed to more than one type of fraud risk, while all have exposure to internal fraud and corruption risk.22 However, few departments produce regular, reliable, and comprehensive measurements on the level of fraud and corruption in major areas of their spending.23 PSFA estimates that, for the two-thirds of government expenditure where there are no specific estimates, the level of fraud and error is somewhere between 0.5% and 5% of expenditure.24 This implies that in addition to the £10 billion a year of lost tax revenue from evasion and criminal attacks and £6.4 billion of benefit fraud last year (2022–23), government is losing somewhere in the range of £2.5 billion to £28.5 billion to fraud and error each year across the rest of its expenditure.25 PSFA and its predecessors have run a Fraud Measurement and Assurance (FMA) programme since 2014 to assess the level of fraud and error outside of the few areas, such as tax, welfare and Ministry of Defence (MoD) spending, where there are annual exercises.26
From: Public Accounts Committee, Sixty-Ninth Report - Tackling fraud and corruption against government (HC 1230), 8 September 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 November 2023 (deadline 8 November 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations on tackling fraud and corruption against government, but disagrees with the recommendation for a separate annual strategic intelligence report.
- On a strategic intelligence report, the government disagrees. The PSFA "will not publish a separate strategic intelligence report", and says it will not publish information that could increase the fraud threat by showing how attacks could be executed.
- It will continue to publish annual Fraud Landscape Reports and bulletins. It says separating fraud from error requires determining intent, which is "cost intensive", so this is left to the discretion of individual departments.
- The government agrees the PSFA should update the Committee in 12 months on the outcome of the next Workforce and Performance Review, with a target implementation date of September 2024.
- On a cross-government communications strategy, the government agrees, with a target implementation date of June 2024. A working group "will develop and maintain a cross-government communications plan".