Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken has been to process suspected benefit fraud reports from the public in each of the last five years.

Benefit fraud investigators are expected to progress cases without undue delay and investigations are brought to a conclusion as soon as enough evidence is gathered to prove or disprove the allegation made. The time taken to do this will depend on the nature of the allegation and the avenues of enquiry that need to be pursued.

Some investigations are extremely complex requiring a greater investment of time. It would not be appropriate to compare investigation times across the board as to do so would not provide meaningful data.