Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much of his Department's expenditure is allocated to preventing, detecting and handling cases of fraud and error in the benefits system; and how many staff in his Department work on those issues.

The Fraud and Error Service (FES), part of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for the investigation of fraud against all benefits administered by DWP.

The 14/15 budget allocation for preventing, detecting and handling cases of fraud and error in the benefits system is:-

£148.5m.

The headcount for FES at the end of January 2015 was 5,057 which is a full time equivalent of 4,502 staff.