Jake Berry – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jake Berry on 2014-03-25.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many cases of child benefit fraud his Department is investigating.

Nicky Morgan

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) approach to Child Benefit error and fraud is to verify all new claims and, on a risk basis, to check existing claims for incorrect information against data from other systems. Where HMRC consider that a claim may not be correct, they open an enquiry. Where the enquiry determines that the claim is incorrect, the claim or part of the claim is terminated.

Child Benefit compliance enquires are carried out continually throughout the year and as at 31 March 2014, HMRC had 3565 ongoing cases.