Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has (a) spent on and (b) reduced its expenditure due to the expansion of targeted case reviews.

Targeted Case Review (TCR) is currently scaling at pace to strengthen the department’s response to fraud and error within Universal Credit.

We are investing £443 million to save £6.6 billion by March 2028.

Investment in TCR for 2022-23 was £19.6 million. As set out in the DWP Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) 2022-23, TCR delivered DWP £39 million of savings, of which £14 million related to 2022-23 expenditure.

We expect the majority of savings to occur in the final years of the project when Targeted Case Review is fully operational.

The Annual Report and Accounts for the financial year 23/24 is expected to be published Summer 2024. This will include Targeted Case Review spend and expenditure. The Fraud and Error National Statistics will be published on 16 May 2024.