Recommendation 10

The Department has repeatedly linked the high level of benefit fraud since the pandemic to an increase in the propensity to commit fraud in society more generally. It told us “there is no doubt” that underlying fraud in society is going up, and that the fraud and error in the benefit system remained at record levels in part because “the tide is rising” and it was battling against it.18 We challenged the Department on its evidence for this belief. It asserted that this view was based on what it has seen “across Government and indeed internationally”, and the British Social Attitudes Survey, but did not provide further detail and admitted it was “difficult not to be anecdotal”.19 Claimants’ engagement with the benefit system