Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of using new technology such as artificial intelligence to find and prevent fraud across the public sector.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Cabinet Office’s Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) is investing in new technologies that will increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to detect and prevent fraud. This includes the use of predictive analytics, a field of AI, that uses supervised machine learning techniques to predict the likelihood of fraud within a given area of spending.
For example a recent Cabinet Office contract award to build a Single Network Analytics Platform for the public sector, features AI and ML capabilities. This platform is for use by public bodies to access data that will help them identify fraud and actors who present a threat.
The PSFA’s approach is to ‘test and learn’ and to carefully apply AI and ML where appropriate, each time proving its merits, and then expanding where a viable use case exists.
Asked by: Viscount Waverley (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they use customs data to map market changes over time in (1) quantity, (2) pricing, (3) number of suppliers, and (4) number of importers, for each harmonized system code; and whether they use any artificial intelligence-based solution to do so.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Lainston - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department makes use of customs data to monitor and better understand patterns of demand for imports and exports of goods and is continuously looking at ways improve and integrate complex datasets and techniques further.
The Department also uses customs data from HMRC and UN COMTRADE to analyse trade flows in the context of supply chains. This is done to improve the visibility of UK critical supply chains and inform government resilience strategies. The Department also leads a cross-Government project called the ‘Global Supply Chains Intelligence Pilot’ which aims to combine government and commercial datasets, along with big data analytics, to map global supply chains.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to tackle benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We take all fraud very seriously. Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams, establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing the circumstances of large volumes of the Universal Credit caseload over the next 5 years and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.
More information on our Fraud Plan, can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
This work is supported by two tranches of additional investment totalling around £900m, which will help prevent a further £2.4bn of loss by 2024/25. This investment includes money allocated via the Autumn Statement, which will help prevent abuse of the system and drive forward our UC case checks.
Collectively, this builds on the existing work and measures DWP has in place to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether protocols have been agreed with (a) his Department, (b) the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, (c) the British Business Bank and (d) commercial lenders on taking steps to pursue fraud in the Government's covid-19 loan schemes.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has always been clear that fraud within the Covid-19 loan schemes is unacceptable and that those who have defrauded the government may be subject to both criminal and commercial recovery efforts. We are taking action against those who defrauded the Schemes by working across Government, law enforcement, counter-fraud agencies, and commercial lenders.
Scheme rules, as well as subsequent guidance based on continued engagement with lenders, spell out lenders’ obligations in this regard. Under the Schemes there was a range of checks to minimise fraud upfront, and lenders continue to work closely with government agencies to identify and pursue fraud within the scheme, minimising losses to the taxpayer as far as possible. The BBB's audit programme evaluates the effectiveness of a range of lender processes and procedures. Where issues are identified the BBB can take remedial action with the lender.
As announced in the Spring Statement 2022, the Government is funding this continued counter-fraud action – with £13mn allocated to the National Investigation Service to double their investigative capacity on Bounce Back Loans and fund enforcement activity building on the Cabinet Office data analytics programme, as well as £11mn to the British Business Bank to boost their counter fraud and assurance programme.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams, establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing 2 million existing Universal Credit (UC) claims and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error. More information on our Fraud Plan can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Government is investing £1.4billion of funding over the next three years in order to combat fraud and error, which includes a further £613 million to facilitate a number of new initiatives, which collectively will stop an estimated £2.0 billion of loss in fraud and error over the next three years. An additional £280m to help prevent abuse of the system and drive forward UC case checks was announced in the recent Autumn Statement.
This builds on the existing work DWP have done to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has taken recent steps to improve the detection of Universal Credit overpayments.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government is investing £1.4billion of funding over the next three years in order to combat fraud and error, which includes a further £613 million to facilitate a number of new initiatives, which collectively will stop an estimated £2.0 billion of loss in fraud and error over the next three years.
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams; establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing 2 million existing Universal Credit claims and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.
More information on our Fraud Plan, can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
This builds on the existing work DWP has done to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will release (1) modelling, and (2) analytics, data on the number of immunocompromised patients who are likely (a) to get, (b) be hospitalised, (c) be admitted to an Intensive Treatment Unit, and (d) to die, from COVID-19 over winter in 2022–23.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to release (1) modelling, and (2) analytics, data on the number of immunocompromised patients (a) who got COVID-19, (b) have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19, (c) who were admitted to intensive care with COVID-19, and (d) have died from COVID-19, since 17 March when Evusheld was approved for use in England.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps his Department has taken to reduce the (a) level and (b) net cost of benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our plans for reducing the level of fraud and error in the welfare system by:
The full document can be found at: Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System – GOV.UK.
This builds on the existing work the department has done to address fraud and error, with savings from correction and prevention of fraud and error totaling £2 billion last year.
The Government is investing £1.4bn of funding over the next three years to combat fraud and error.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to prioritise the needs of vulnerable claimants and protected groups in plans to use data analytics and machine learning to flag potential benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
As a public body, the Department for Work and Pensions has processes in place to ensure it meets the requirements of the Equality Act 2010, including the Public Sector Equality Duty, which covers the need to pay due regard to equality in the development and provision of its services; our approach to using data analytics and machine learning to detect/prevent fraud is no exception.
The department has been cautious in this area and is committed to ensuring individuals’ rights are protected when personal data is processed for its functions and has outlined in its Personal Information Charter how we use data for fraud and error purposes. The department also has measures in place to identify and support vulnerable claimants, including referral to our specialist customer support team who provide a range of services. The department is conscious to take into account the impact of decisions on protected groups under the Equality Act.
The department is always careful to process data lawfully, proportionately, and ethically, with meaningful human input and safeguards in place for the protection of individuals.
We do not use machine learning to replace human judgement to determine or deny a payment to a claimant; a human agent always makes final decisions in these circumstances.