Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, has today qualified his opinion on the Department for Work and Pensions accounts for the eighteenth consecutive year. This is because an estimated £2.5 billion has been lost to fraud and error in benefit payments, and because of uncertainties over the debts created by customers being overpaid.
Jump to downloadsAcross the benefit schemes operated by DWP a total of £690 million was lost to fraud, £1,010 million to customer error, and £850 million to official error. The sum represents 2.1% of benefit expenditure. The estimated loss is down from £2.7 billion (2.3%) in the previous year.
In his report Sir John Bourn notes that the past year has seen further real progress towards removing or tackling these long-standing qualifications of the Department’s accounts. In particular, Sir John acknowledges that the Department has made real progress in introducing new systems and procedures that both reduce fraud and error and properly value and record identified debts.
“Once again I have had to qualify my opinion on the Department for Work and Pensions accounts because of the significant sums lost to fraud and error: £2.5 billion or 2.1% in the last year.
“At the same time I have been able to remove two aspects of the qualification of the Department’s accounts which is a clear tribute to the leadership evident within the Department in tackling these issues.”
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office
Downloads
- 0607875.pdf (.pdf — 55 KB)
Publication details
- ISBN: 9780102950663 [Buy a hard copy of this report]
- HC: 875 2006-2007
