Government officials slammed for paying fortune to foreign fraudsters pretending to live in Britain
Furious MPs said it defied belief that neither the Department for Work and Pensions nor the HMRC had managed to tackle benefit fraud costing a total over £1 billion a year
HAPLESS Government officials were humiliated last night for shelling out a fortune in benefits to fraudster foreigners who pretend they live in Britain.
Furious MPs said it defied belief that neither the Department for Work and Pensions nor the HMRC had managed to tackle benefit fraud costing a total over £1 billion a year.
And they demanded a new programme of “stretching” targets to force Ministers to take responsibility for taxpayers’ cash.
In a withering report, the Commons Public Accounts Committee said: “Fraud and error in the payment of benefits and tax credits remains a significant problem.
“It’s encouraging that the DWP and HMRC are targeting the causes of losses such as misreported income.
“But they also need clearer plans to reduce fraud in other challenging areas such as claimants pretending to live in the UK who live abroad.”
The PAC said it didn’t have precise figures for how much was being lost to foreigners ripping off the taxpayer. But in March this year, a couple were found guilty of costing the DWP £420,000 in an elaborate scam involving bogus workers.
Despite having then flown home, they were then connected to bogus addresses and registered by the couple as working for them for 24 hours per week, so they were entitled to benefits.
HMRC last month ripped US firm Concentrix’s tax credits contract after it emerged hundreds of people had wrongly had their payments stopped. The £75 million deal had been designed to help the Government tackle incorrect or fraudulent tax credit payments.