The Labour Party has granted the DWP new powers which means it will be able to take money from payslips and accounts.
However there is one benefit that will remain “safe” from bank account checks, the Department for Work and Pensions has revealed.
DWP minister, Liz Kendall, said state pensioners will be “safe”.
New powers given by the Labour government mean that benefit fraud investigators will be able to recover debts of those who have over claimed – directly from their bank accounts.
This new change is part of the government’s plans to encourage people back to work and stop people from relying too heavily on benefits.
Ms Kendall wants to update the department’s powers and called their current investigatory capacities ‘absurd’.
With these new powers, the DWP will be able to crack down on welfare scams by taking the money directly from the bank accounts of scammers.
Officials estimate there will be a five % increase in fraud each year.
Out of taxpayer money, £9.7 billion was overpaid in benefits due to fraud and error in 2023-24, this accounted for 3.7% of total benefit expenditure.
In 2022-23, £8.3 billion, 3.6% was overpaid in benefits.
Levels have continued to remain well above pre Covid figures.
The DWP is looking to save £1.6billion over the next five years as part of a new crackdown on benefit cheats, reports The Mirror.
In a letter to the Telegraph, Ms Kendall said: “We’re in an absurd situation where DWP‘s powers have not been updated for 20 years, meaning fraudsters have new ways of taking public money, and we need to keep pace with them.”
Ms Kendall went on and told the national newspaper this weekend: “My team are still, in 2024, sending letters to gather evidence for those suspected of welfare fraud, slowing them down to snail’s pace when they could be shutting down serious fraud cases.”
