Recommendation 20

We asked the Department how long it would be before it could set a target for fraud and error reduction. It told us that it could not say when it would have enough clarity 32 Qq 70–72 33 Committee of Public Accounts, Department for Work and Pensions Accounts 2020–21 – Fraud and error in the benefits system, Twenty-Fifth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 633, 17 November 2021 34 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes - Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty- Second to the Twenty-Sixth reports from Session 2021–22, CP 603, January 2022 35 Qq 18, 35 36 Committee of Public Accounts, Department for Work and Pensions Accounts 2019–20, Twenty-Sixth Report of Session 2019–21, HC 681, 18 November 2020 37 Committee of Public Accounts, Department for Work and Pensions Accounts 2020–21 – Fraud and error in the benefits system, Twenty-Fifth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 633, 17 November 2021 38 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes - Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty- Second to the Twenty-Sixth reports from Session 2021–22, CP 603, January 2022 16 The Department for Work and Pensions’ Accounts 2021–22 – Fraud and error in the benefits system about baseline levels of fraud and error to set a target, but that in the meantime a first step toward this would be to measure the savings that its counter-fraud and compliance teams are delivering and the effectiveness of its interventions. It explained that it expected its £613 million investment in counter-fraud activities to generate £2 billion in savings over the spending review period, of which £1.1 billion would be during the financial year 2022–23.39