The Department refers cases of suspected fraud to its Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) to assess the accuracy of the award. Its FIU detected 1,400 cases involving fraud in 2020–21 and increased the child maintenance owed by £10.9 million.74 The Department relies almost entirely on parents to detect child maintenance fraud. It told us that its “most fruitful references come from the receiving parent, often because it is the receiving parent who knows an awful lot about the paying parent’s s...

The Department refers cases of suspected fraud to its Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) to assess the accuracy of the award. Its FIU detected 1,400 cases involving fraud in 2020–21 and increased the child maintenance owed by £10.9 million.74 The Department relies almost entirely on parents to detect child maintenance fraud. It told us that its “most fruitful references come from the receiving parent, often because it is the receiving parent who knows an awful lot about the paying parent’s situation and financial affairs as they chase things down” but that this was not its only route to detect fraud as it could pick this up through casework. Type: conclusion | Number: 33 | Response status: not_addressed Government response: 4. PAC conclusion: The Department has not taken responsibility for detecting child maintenance fraud, instead shifting this responsibility onto its customers. 4. PAC recommendation: The Department should take responsibility for managing the overall level of fraud