Recommendation 14

The Department informed us that “many more claims naturally means more fraud and error in the system”.29 The Department reported that the number of people on Universal Credit almost doubled from 2.9 million in February to 5.6 million in August and has continued to grow since.30 Fraud and error in Universal Credit for 2019–20 is £1.9 billion (£1.7 billion overpayments and £0.2 billion underpayments).31 Therefore, as a rough estimate, the effect of a doubling in caseload alone (ignoring the effect of easements to controls) could cause around a £1.9 billion increase in fraud and error in Universal Credit for 2020–21. Fraud and error impact of COVID-19