Record fraud crackdown saves £480 million-plus for public services

Over one-third of the money saved (ie £186 million) comes from identifying and recovering fraud committed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Government efforts to date have blocked hundreds of thousands of companies with outstanding or potentially fraudulent Bounce Back Loans from dissolving before they would have to pay anything back.

The Government has also clawed back millions of pounds from companies that took out COVID-19 loans to which they were not entitled or that took out multiple loans when only entitled to one.

This builds on successful convictions in recent months to deal with opportunists who exploited the Bounce Back Loan Scheme for their own gain.

Alongside COVID fraud, the record savings reached in the year to April 2025 include clamping down on people unlawfully claiming single person Council Tax discount and removing people from social housing waiting lists who wanted to illegally sub-let their discounted homes at the taxpayers’ expense.

Record figures

Announcing the record figures at an anti-fraud Five Eyes Summit held in London, Cabinet Office Minister Josh Simons said: “Working people expect their taxes to go towards schools, hospitals, roads and the services they and their families use. That money going into the hands of fraudsters is a betrayal of their hard work and the system of paying your fair share. It has to stop. That’s why this Government has delivered the toughest ever crackdown on fraud, protecting almost half a billion pounds in under 12 months.”

Simons added: “We’re using cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data tools to stay one step ahead of fraudsters, making sure public funds are protected and used to deliver public services for those who need them most and not line the pockets of scammers and swindlers.”

The savings have been driven by comparing different information the Government holds to stop people falsely claiming benefits and discounts for which they’re clearly not eligible.

The high-tech push brought around £110 million back to the Exchequer more than the year before, and comes as the Government pushes to save £45 billion by using tech to make the public sector more productive, saving money for the National Health Servce and police forces to deliver the Plan for Change.

AI fraud prevention tool

Simons has also unveiled a new AI fraud prevention tool that has been built by the Government and will be used across all departments after successful tests.

The AI system scans new policies and procedures for weaknesses before they can be exploited, in turn helping to make new policies fraud-proof when they’re drafting them.

The tool could be essential in preventing fraudsters from taking advantage of Government efforts to help people in need amid future emergencies. It has been designed to prevent the scale of criminality seen through the COVID pandemic, where millions of pounds were lost to people falsely taking advantage of furlough, COVID Grants and Bounce Back Loans.

Results from early tests show that the system could save thousands of hours and help prevent millions in potential losses, slashing the time needed to identify fraud risks by 80%, while preserving human oversight.

The UK will also licence the technology internationally, with Five Eyes partners considering adoption as part of strengthening global efforts to stop fraud and demonstrating Britain’s role at the forefront of innovation.

Targeting fraud

The Five Eyes Summit brought together key allies and showcased the Government’s “unprecedented” use of AI, data-matching and specialist investigators to target fraud across more than a thousand different schemes.

During the proceedings, Josh Simons described how the record crackdown has been achieved. Over £68 million of wrongful pension payments were prevented across major public sector pension schemes, including the Local Government Pension Scheme, the NHS Pension Scheme, Civil Service Pensions and the Armed Forces pension schemes. These savings were achieved by identifying cases where pension payments continued after the individual had died, often with relatives continuing to claim benefits to which they were not entitled.

More than 2,600 people were removed from housing waiting lists they weren’t entitled to be on, including individuals who were sub-letting or orchestrating multiple tenancies on an unlawful basis. 

Over 37,000 fraudulent single-person Council Tax discount claims were stopped, thereby saving £36 million for local councils and taxpayers. These false claims, often made by individuals misrepresenting their household size to secure a 25% discount, were uncovered using advanced data-matching.

Extensive progress

The Government’s announcement follows extensive progress on combating fraud in the last 12 months, including the appointment of a COVID Counter-Fraud Commissioner, introduction of the Public Authorities Fraud, Error and Recovery Bill and boosts for AI-driven detection, saving hundreds of millions of pounds and strengthening public sector fraud prevention.

The majority of the £480 million-plus that has been saved is taxpayer money, with a portion from private sector partners, such as insurance and utilities companies, helping to lower consumer costs and support UK business growth.