Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent estimate his Department has made of the (a) sum and (b) proportion of (i) Official Development Assistance spending and (ii) British International Investments that were written off as a result of fraud in each of the last 10 years for which data is available.

There have been no write-offs of British International Investment spending in the last ten years as a result of fraud. The suitability of international organisations receiving Official Development Assistance (ODA), including the projects they organise and grants they provide, is continually assessed through FCDO annual reviews and business cases, as set out in the Department's Programme Operating Framework.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) independently scrutinises UK ODA to international organisations to assess value for money and impact, including recent ICAI reviews of tackling fraud in multilateral organisations. For example, the 'Tackling fraud in UK aid through multilateral organisations' review was published on 22 March 2022.

ODA spend is reported on a calendar year basis in line with international reporting requirements; from 2015 to 2021 totalled £95.2 billion. Based on write off and fraud loss data, our records show that losses written off because of fraud cases totalled £3.0 million over the financial years 2015/16 to 2021/21. This equates to 0.003% of the proportion of ODA written off because of fraud.

The tables below provide the breakdown requested.