Recommendation 3

The success of DWP’s plan to reduce fraud and error in Universal Credit is dependent on its ability to review 8 million live claims by 2027–28. The biggest element of DWP’s counter-fraud plan is a project to cleanse the benefit system of incorrect payments by reviewing millions of Universal Credit claims – which it calls Targeted Case Reviews (TCR). DWP is investing £443 million in TCR over the current Spending Review period up to March 2025 and expects TCR to produce £6.4 billion of savings by 2027–28. To achieve this, it expects that staff will need to review around 8 million live claims, which will involve interviewing and chasing evidence from millions of people. TCR appears to be working as expected at a small scale (with 25,000 claims in 2022–23), but DWP faces a significant challenge in scaling up the project. It plans to increase the number of its TCR staff from 2,000 to around 6,000 and to more than triple the average number of claims each agent reviews each day. DWP acknowledged these challenges but says it is on track. However, it plans to outsource around 40% of TCR reviews to private contractors, which brings with it further risks to maintaining effectiveness, quality and customer service in reviews that are outsourced. Recommendation 3: As part of its Treasury Minute response to this report, DWP should set out how it will report on the efficacy, quality and customer service of Targeted Case Reviews, including separate disclosure where this has been outsourced to contractors. This is to provide public confidence that the review of Universal Credit cases is working, is not overly burdensome, and is not leading to legitimate claims being disrupted.