New powers allowing DWP officials to view details of benefit claimants’ bank accounts risk “collateral intrusion” into people’s private details, an expert has warned.
The measures coming in under new legislation will allow investigators to request details of a person’s bank statements, in cases where they owe an amount, to ensure they have the funds available to pay.
Officials will also be able directly take an amount from a person’s bank account under the new powers. Helena Wood, director of Public Policy and Strategic Engagement at fraud prevention group Cifas, raised concerns about the new measures before MPs.
She warned of the risk of “collateral intrusion” as the quality of data from both the DWP and financial institutions “is not always as good as it could be”.
She urged: “This is a very intrusive power, but it sits in a suite of other measures and powers available to investigators across the system.
“What we do not want to do with this power is to bring those other powers into disrepute. We have to apply this with due caution, make sure that match is a match.
“I would like to see which specific data points will be available to the DWP investigator to ensure this is a match and to minimise the risk of collateral intrusion.”
The draft legislation outlines that in a case where the DWP wants to recover an amount directly from a person’s bank account, officials must first obtain and look at least three months of bank statements, by requesting this information from the relevant bank or other account provider.
This includes powers to require the bank to “identify every account that the liable person holds with the bank” providing details of the type of each account, and the name and address for the account holder, or both names and addresses in the case of a joint account.
Ms Wood said there is a need to “minimise the level of information” that the bank provides to the DWP and that she would like there to be a “minimum standard of data match that would be required to take action on that data”.
Raising further question, she said: “If the banks are only giving a minimum amount of information back into the DWP, how do we know that that is an absolute specific match on the individuals they have on their system?
“Without seeing information about how that will be acted upon in the code of practice, I am slightly cautious. We need to see that detail earlier rather than later, for you to be able to make that judgment about the risks of unintended consequences of this legislation.”
The new powers will not only be used by the DWP, with counter-fraud officials for the NHS saying they will likely use the measures in their work.
Alex Rothwell, chief executive of the NHS counter-fraud authority, told MPs: “The bill will be incredibly helpful for us to recover more money from people who have been suspected of fraud.”
He went on to say this could include cases where a person owes a relatively small amount: “When it comes to pursuing criminal justice outcomes in relatively low value cases – perhaps individuals who have taken £5,000 or £10,000, who have been exited through human resources processes or who have simply left the organisation – the bill gives us an incredible opportunity to recover more funds, and I think we would use it extensively.”
