Consultation outcome

Proposals: changes to fraud and error statistics

Updated 6 December 2018

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Background

This consultation runs to 16 September 2018.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes statistics on levels of fraud and error in the benefit system. These statistics are currently published twice a year, in May and November.

The May publication contains provisional estimates for the financial year that has just finished, using the latest data available.

The November publication then provides the final version of these figures.

Currently we measure 6 benefits on a regular basis:

• Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Employment and Support Allowance
• Pension Credit
• Housing Benefit
• Universal Credit
• Personal Independence Payment

The purpose of this consultation is to seek users’ views on the:

• frequency of publication
• benefits measured in the publication
• breakdowns used within the publication

We also want users to tell us how they use the statistics and what they think about how they are presented.

Changes to the frequency of the statistical publication will not affect DWP developing and embedding a new strategic approach to fraud, error and debt. This will set out our path towards delivering services that minimise losses from incorrect claims.

Overview

We want you to tell us:

• what you use our statistics for?
• would stopping the November publication be acceptable – if not, why not?
• which benefit or benefits you need us to measure that we’ve not measured recently, and why?
• if stopping producing age and gender breakdowns would be acceptable – if not, why not?
• what you think about the presentation of the statistics?

Questions about when we publish

We produce 2 statistical releases each year.

In May we publish “preliminary” financial year statistics that include data which was collected in the October to September of the previous year.

In November we publish statistics that include data which was collected in the April to March of the previous financial year – these cover a complete financial year.

The preliminary statistics are used in the DWP report and accounts. The National Audit Office use these accounts to comment on how well the department is doing in combatting fraud and error.

Having 2 sets of published statistics about the same financial year can be confusing. This is because DWP often uses the finalised figures from November when commenting on fraud and error levels (rather than what is published in the department’s accounts).

We would like to stop publishing the statistics in November and only publish the data collected in the period October to September each year.

Questions

We would like you to tell us:

• what you use our statistics for?
• would stopping the November publication be acceptable – and if not, why not?

Questions about what we publish

We measure some benefits all of the time. We visit or phone claimants to check their current circumstances. We see if they match what we have recorded on our systems, and whether they’re getting the right amount of benefit based on those current circumstances.

We choose the benefits that have the highest expenditure or that we believe might have the highest levels of fraud and error.

There are some benefits that we haven’t measured for a long time, or not at all. We’d like to measure one or some of these benefits in our next reporting cycles:

• Attendance Allowance
• Carer’s Allowance
• Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for children or pensioners (Personal Independence Payment is taking the place of DLA for working aged people)
• State Pension measured for fraud and claimant error (we measure it every year but only for official error)

We publish statistics split down by age and gender on Tables 6 and 12 of the release. Over the last few years the number of cases we check on some benefits has reduced so those splits have quite a lot of sampling variation.

Questions:

We would like you to tell us:

• which benefit or benefits do you need us to measure, and why?
• do you use the age and gender breakdowns on Tables 6 and 12 of the release?
• what do you use the tables for?
• would removing the age and gender breakdowns be acceptable – and if not, why not?

Questions about how we publish

Recently we have changed our statistical publication to make it easier for our users to see the main findings in our figures.

We have also tried to make greater use of effective data visualisation tools as the data behind the publication is now available via Stat-Xplore and an interactive data visualisation tool.

We have also tried to improve the supporting documentation for the publication, explaining the process by which the statistics are produced in simpler terms.

Questions

We would like you to tell us:

• what do you think of the publication and the supporting documents?
• is there anything else you would like to see in the publication and supporting documents?

How to reply

Provide comments on these proposals by 16 September 2018.

Send comments by email to [email protected] – you can use the questionnaire to provide your feedback.

Or by post to:

Department for Work and Pensions
Statistics Services Division
BP5201 Benton Park View
Newcastle
NE98 1YX

What happens next?

Once we have considered all of the responses to this consultation we will publish a response at the same time as the next publication of these statistics in November 2018.

We will include a summary of the responses, what our plans are going forward and an explanation of our choices.