Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost per claim is for successfully identified fraudulent Universal Claims using his Department’s machine learning algorithm.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not record this information.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total annual cost of his Department’s use of machine learning algorithms to identify fraudulent benefit claims is.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not record this information.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of staff working on fraud and error in his Department work on (a) preventing fraud and error upfront and (b) detecting fraud and error after it has happened.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Tackling loss is a key priority for DWP and every member of staff undertakes mandatory annual fraud and error training.
Outside of this, we secured an additional £900 million in recent Spending Rounds which enabled us to enhance both our fraud and error prevention and detection capabilities. This includes our Targeted Case Review team which will review millions of Universal Credit claims for incorrectness.
As of the 31st March, our Targeted Case Review team currently has 3,100 Full Time equivalent agents reviewing Universal Credit claims.
As of the 31st March, our Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt Directorate (which includes National Insurance allocation and Debt Management functions) has 8,700 Full Time Equivalent employees, of which 1,400 are working directly on the prevention of fraud and error, with 1,700 working on detection of fraud and error after it has happened.
To note - all figures have been rounded.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) large and (b) unusual underpayments have been referred for analysis since June 2023.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP measures its underpayments via annual national statistics published each May. However, we do not produce an estimate for the value of a benefit underpayment.
DWP conducts internal quality assurance checks focusing on financial accuracy and service quality.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to page 88 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023, published on 6 July 2023, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Work and Health Programme following the programme evaluation using Randomised Control Trial design.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department published the Work and Health Programme evaluation: synthesis report in October 2023 - the report presents findings from the evaluation of the Work and Health Programme. The department has not yet provided an assessment of the programme’s impact.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of the Work and Health Programme on supporting disabled people into the workforce.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department published the Work and Health Programme evaluation: synthesis report in October 2023 - the report presents findings from the evaluation of the Work and Health Programme. The department has not yet provided an assessment of the programme’s impact.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people the Work and Health Programme has supported into work (a) in total and (b) by region.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The number of participants on the Work and Health Programme who achieve job outcomes, and when they are achieved, are published in the job outcomes statistics on Stat-Xplore and are available for England and Wales and regional level to November 2023.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of the advance Universal Credit claims flagged by his Department’s machine learning algorithm as potentially fraudulent in which claimants were (a) from protected groups and (b) vulnerable claimants were found to be fraudulent.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Publishing these figures would compromise our ability to prevent or detect fraud.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of the advance Universal Credit claims flagged by his Department’s machine learning algorithm as potentially fraudulent were (a) from protected groups and (b) vulnerable claimants.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Publishing these figures would compromise our ability to prevent or detect fraud.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many of the advance Universal Credit claims flagged by his Department’s machine learning algorithm as potentially fraudulent were from (a) protected groups and (b) vulnerable claimants.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Publishing these figures would compromise our ability to prevent or detect fraud.