Recommendation 26

The most significant element of DWP’s counter-fraud plan is a project to cleanse the benefit system of incorrect payments by reviewing some 8 million live Universal Credit claims over five years. DWP expects this project—which it calls ‘Targeted Case Reviews’ (TCR)—to generate £6.4 billion of savings by 2027–28. DWP is investing £443 million in TCR over the spending review period to March 2025.59 DWP told us that it considers TCR to be the best way to bring fraud and error back down to pre-pandemic levels, describing it as a “huge, huge intervention”.60