Fraud costs the public billions, as criminals attempt to take advantage of the welfare state. But in recent years, the Cabinet Office has mitigated much of the damage. An anti-fraud scheme, run by the Cabinet Office, has detected or prevented more than £2billion of fraud since it was launched 25 years ago, helping to protect public money and put fraudsters behind bars.
The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) has played a “critical role” in identifying people trying to defraud the public sector, ensuring taxpayers’ money goes towards delivering vital services, instead of ending up in the wrong hands.
Lord Agnew, the Cabinet Office Minister, commented: “The work done by the National Fraud Initiative is keeping nefarious fingers out of the public purse, protecting funding which can go towards essential services such as the NHS.
“It’s entirely right that British taxpayers expect the Government to protect their hard-earned money and programmes such as these allow us to do exactly that.”
The importance of this initiative was highlighted recently by a fraudulent benefit claim.
READ…
