Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the level of identity verification required to sign up to Universal Credit is adequate; what reviews, if any, they have undertaken to ensure that online applications do not require a higher standard of identity assurance than is applied elsewhere; and how they are trying to clear the current backlog of face-to-face interview appointments.

DWP takes the security of Universal Credit very seriously, this includes verifying who our claimants are; we continue to work to maintain the high standards of our identity verification processes. There are various ways in which a claimant can verify their identity for Universal Credit purposes: online using the gov.uk verify service; in person using primary and secondary ID verification or; by using biographical questions.

In line with advice from the National Cyber Security Centre and best practice, we treat identity proofing as just one of many defences that combine to mitigate attempted fraud. In line with our “test and learn” approach to delivering Universal Credit, we continuously assess the levels of security and fraud risk to both Government and our users, as it is critical that we strike the right balance between making the service as smooth as possible for claimants and protecting the taxpayer against fraud. We reviewed the level of identity required to strike this balance prior to the introduction of gov.uk Verify as an option for users to prove their identity online into the service and found that it, in combination with the other defences against fraud built into the service, gave a sufficiently strong level of proof. As Universal Credit continues to roll out, we are again reviewing the level of identity and the options available to further improve claimants’ experience while protecting DWP against fraud as part of wider efficiency improvements.