Benefit fraud

Benefit fraud is a form of welfare fraud as found within the system of government benefits paid to individuals by the welfare state in the United Kingdom.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) define benefit fraud as when someone obtains state benefit they are not entitled to or deliberately fails to report a change in their personal circumstances. The DWP claim that fraudulent benefit claims amounted to around £900 million in 2008–09.

The most common form of benefit fraud is when a person receives benefits, but continues or begins employment. Another common form of fraud is when the receivers of benefits claim that they live alone, but they are financially supported by a partner or spouse.

In 2002, the DWP launched a 'Targeting Benefit Thieves' advertising campaign to spread their message that benefit fraud carried a criminal sanction. The most recent campaign makes claims about the likelihood of getting caught and the consequences of committing benefit fraud using ‘And they thought they’d never be caught’ as the leading slogan.

In recent years the term benefit fraud has been used by the DWP to encompass a wider range of behaviours, beyond simultaneously claiming unemployment benefit whilst working in the informal labour market. Their 2007 'No ifs, No buts' campaign emphasised other activities that could lead to prosecution. This includes failing to inform the state that your partner is now living with you, or that you have moved house, or that a relative has died, leaving you some money.

Since the introduction of the Welfare Reform Act 2007, councils can now independently investigate a number of Social Security benefits.

The State of the Nation report published in 2010 by the Government of David Cameron estimated the total benefit fraud in the United Kingdom in 2009/10 to be approximately £1 billion. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that benefit fraud is thought to have cost taxpayers £1.2 billion during 2012–13, up 9 per cent on the year before. A poll conducted by the Trades Union Congress in 2012 found that perceptions among the British public were that benefit fraud was high – on average people thought that 27% of the British welfare budget is claimed fraudulently; however, official UK Government figures have stated that the proportion of fraud stands at 0.7% of the total welfare budget in 2011/12.

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