Fraud: Costs
(asked on 12th July 2022) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on producing an estimate for the total financial cost of fraud in the UK against (a) individuals, (b) businesses and (c) the Government in (i) financial year 2020-21, (ii) calendar year 2021 and (iii) financial year 2021-22.
Treasury ministers and officials regularly engage with the Home Office to discuss shared policy interests, such as the response to fraud. The Treasury takes fraud extremely seriously and has been consistently clear that fraud is never acceptable and that those who have defrauded the government will be subject to both criminal and commercial recovery efforts. Since 2021, over £750m has been announced to combat fraud. This includes £25m for the creation of a new Public Sector Fraud Authority.
We do not hold estimates for the total financial cost of fraud in the UK to individuals and businesses for the financial years 2020-21, 2021-22 or the calendar year 2021. However, the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates the volume of fraud experienced by individuals and their average losses. This can be found at:
Action Fraud is a Home Office central reporting service and records reported financial losses experienced by businesses and individuals. This can be found at:
https://colp.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/0334150e430449cf8ac917e347897d46
The Counter Fraud Function in Cabinet Office undertakes activity to estimate the level of fraud and error in the public sector. Pre COVID-19 this was estimated to be a minimum of £29 billion per year.
Departments publish an Annual Report and Accounts for each financial year, as part of this they are now required to include estimates of COVID-19 fraud. These have now been published for the financial year 2020-21 and are due to be published for 2021-2022 shortly. These reports are available on GOV.UK departmentally, but not as a collective, cross-government estimate.