Recommendation 20

The Department told us that it wants to get to the point where its accounts are no longer qualified. It acknowledged that it is not where it wants to be, but said it knows what it needs to do.40 It said that it is working with the NAO to understand what it needs to do to demonstrate that it has a cost-effective set of fraud and error controls. The Department added that, although there will always be some fraud and error, having fraud and error at a cost-effective level is consistent with its wider objectives of providing the service that its customers expect. It also stated that there “is always a balance here” (implying between fraud and error and other organisational objectives), but that it needs to get to a point where it has “that balance set in a cost-effective way”, in order to provide confidence that its payments are in line with parliamentary intention.41