§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what was(a) the total expenditure of his Department and its agencies and (b) the total expenditure on counter-fraud work within his Department and its agencies in the last year for which figures are available. [21734]
§ Malcolm WicksInformation on the Department's total expenditure is provided in Table 4 of the 2001–02 Departmental Report.
The Department set out its strategy for tackling fraud and error in the paper 'A New Contract for Welfare: Safeguarding Social Security' (Cm4276) published on 23 March 1999. The overall aim of the strategy is to have a benefit system which is secure from first claim to final payment.
The implementation of this strategy means that anti-fraud focus is integral to the work of the Department, as is dealing with the wider agenda of error and incorrectness in benefit payments. It is therefore not possible to account for the cost of anti-fraud work separately.