Recommendation 12

We asked the Department whether it had considered explanations for failure to engage other than deliberate dishonesty, such as concern about the impact on employment or housing if a claimant appeared to under investigation. It stressed that the labelling of claimants who fail to engage as fraudsters was only for the purposes of producing statistics. It told us that it has performed some limited work to understand the reasons for lack of engagement, but admitted it had no statistically significant data yet. It explained that it expected its planned ‘Targeted Case Review’ of two million open Universal Credit claims will provide further detail. We asked the Department whether there was anything attached to a claimant’s record showing that their claim was statistically being treated as fraudulent. It told us there was not, but added that claimants who do not engage with Targeted Case Review will be flagged on the Universal Credit system and be unable to get back on benefits without engaging with the Department’s enquiries.22