Research and analysis

Survey of public perceptions of fraud, error and debt: summary

Published 31 October 2023

Overview

This is a survey of UK adults to understand perceptions of fraud, error and debt in the welfare benefits system, and to gauge attitudes toward potential new powers aimed at reducing levels of fraud, error and debt.

The purpose of the research is to inform communications around the potential new powers and about Department for Work and Pensions (DWP’s) efforts to tackle benefit fraud more broadly; and to inform policy decisions around possible future implementation of the new powers.

Research context

DWP is exploring potential legislative measures to help reduce levels of fraud, error and debt (FED) in the benefits system, as set out in the May 2022 policy paper, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System^{[footnote 1]}. The potential legislative measures include providing greater third-party access to data, modernising information-gathering powers, seeking law-enforcement powers, developing debt recovery, and reforming the current penalty regime. The research aimed to explore the acceptability of these potential powers to help inform future policy development, assess communication approaches and build the evidence base on fraud, error and debt.

To contextualise the potential legislative measures, the research sought to understand public perceptions of fraud, error and debt in the welfare benefits system. Although public attitudes to fraud and error have been researched in the British Social Attitudes Survey^{[footnote 2]}, data on a full range of questions had not been gathered prior to the pandemic, and at the time of the survey’s inception it was not clear which questions would be asked in British Social Attitudes survey 2022. Exploring general public attitudes to fraud and error also allowed for the research to investigate whether attitudes affected claimants’ views on the proposed powers or not.

Methodology

The survey was carried out using KnowledgePanel, Ipsos’ random probability online panel. This panel is highly representative: panellists are selected at random by address using the Postcode Address File, and the profile of panellists is similar to national statistics on key demographics. The digitally excluded population are included by providing them with tablets and Internet access.

Ipsos developed the survey questionnaire based on an initial draft supplied by DWP. Ipsos held a stakeholder workshop to feed into questionnaire development as well as attending meetings with individual policy teams. The questionnaire was cognitively tested with 10 members of the public including five benefit claimants: this testing resulted in changes to the questionnaire to improve understanding and reduce cognitive effort for participants. Following these changes, the questionnaire was also reviewed for best practice standards by a member of Ipsos’ internal panel of polling experts.

Three of the questions had alternative versions which were presented to half of the sample, selected at random. One half of respondents (sample A) saw neutrally worded versions of these questions, while the other half (sample B) saw versions with wording intended to elicit a more favourable response.

Fieldwork took place between 15 and 21 June 2023. The survey was completed by 2,127 people, comprising a nationally representative sample of 1,782 people and a boost of 345 additional claimants. Overall, including the boost sample and those in the nationally representative sample, 618 respondents were claimants in terms of the definition used for this research^{[footnote 3]}. In the figures in this report, the additional claimants have been included, with the group of all claimants weighted in proportion to their prevalence in the overall UK population (24.5%). Some additional weighting was carried out to correct for imbalances in the achieved sample on other characteristics.

Key findings

Findings on fraud & error in general:

• overall, 3 in 5 respondents (62%) saw fraud and error in the welfare benefits system as a big problem
• dishonesty regarding benefit claims was seen as always or usually wrong by 85% of respondents:
  • 39% of respondents thought that around half of incorrect benefit claims were a result of dishonestly
  • 31% of respondents thought that most incorrect benefit claims were due to dishonesty
• although very few people (5%) thought levels of fraud and error were going down, respondents were fairly evenly split as to whether they were increasing (39%) or staying the same (34%)
• overall, respondents tended to have pessimistic or negative views about the response to fraud and error:
  • more than half of respondents (56%) thought the government was not doing enough to reduce levels of fraud and error, compared to less than a quarter who thought it was doing too much or the right amount (24%)
• there were high levels of “don’t know” responses for questions about trends in fraud and error and about government action on the issue, suggesting a lack of awareness about the prevalence of the issue and response to it

Findings on the potential new powers:

• 50% of respondents said they felt positive overall about the new powers described in the survey, while 21% of respondents felt negatively about the new powers and 25% reported that they felt neutral:
  • claimants were less positive, although in this group there were still more people who felt positive about the powers than who felt negative
• for each of the new powers described in the survey, there were more respondents who saw the power as acceptable than who thought it was unacceptable
• overall, the power relating to cross-government data-sharing was most commonly seen as acceptable (70%), whilst the proposed arrest powers were least commonly seen as acceptable (51%)
• within the group of DWP claimants, there were consistently lower proportions of people considering the new powers to be acceptable and higher proportions of people considering them unacceptable. However, even within this group, there were more people considering the new powers to be acceptable than people who thought they were unacceptable for every power except collecting information about where claimants are spending money

Impact of additional context wording on responses:

• for some questions, there are significant differences in response associated with wording that provides a brief explanation of the positive impact the power could have. However, differences were not seen in every instance, and where differences exist, they are relatively small
• the additional wording did not appear to have an impact on respondents’ overall views on the potential new powers

Findings explained

Views on fraud and error

Overall, 3 in 5 respondents (62%) saw fraud and error in the welfare benefits system as a big problem, including 1 in 5 (18%) who saw it as a very big problem. Only 3% of respondents did not see it as a problem at all. Older people and people without a degree were more likely to see it as a big problem than the overall population.

2 in 5 respondents (39%) thought that around half of incorrect benefit claims were a result of dishonestly, while 31% thought that most were due to dishonesty. Only 17% thought that most incorrect claims were due to mistakes, although this view was more common among graduates (25%) and DWP claimants (21%). 6 in 7 respondents (85%) thought that knowingly giving false information to support a benefit claim was “always” or “usually” wrong.

Overall, respondents tended to have pessimistic or negative views about the response to fraud and error. The view that people who falsely claim benefits will likely not be caught was twice as common as the view that they likely will be (59% vs. 32%). More than half of respondents (56%) thought the government was not doing enough to reduce levels of fraud and error, compared to less than a quarter who thought it was doing too much or the right amount (24%). This is similar to the proportion saying the government was doing a bad job at reducing levels of fraud and error (58%, vs. 21% who thought it was doing a good job).

There were high levels of “don’t know” responses for some of the questions in this section, suggesting a lack of awareness about the prevalence of the issue and efforts to respond to it: 21% of respondents reported that they did not know whether levels of fraud and error were going up and down. A similar proportion (21%) said they did not know whether the government was doing enough to reduce fraud and error or whether they were doing a good or bad job at this.

Overall acceptability of potential new powers

Respondents were asked at the end of the survey for their overall views on the potential new powers.

50% of respondents said they felt positive about the new powers, with 12% feeling very positive. 21% of respondents felt negatively about the new powers, with 25% reporting that they felt neutral.

Claimants were less positive, although in this group there were still more people who felt positive about the powers than who felt negative: 38% of claimants said they felt positive about the new powers and 27% felt negative.

Respondents were more likely to feel positive about the potential powers if they:

• saw fraud and error as a big problem (61% of this group were positive)
• thought that fraud and error was increasing (63%)
• thought that fraud and error was mostly due to dishonesty (68%)

Respondents were also more likely to feel positive about the powers if they:

• believed the government was doing a good job in other policy areas (for example, 72% of those believing the government was doing a good job in improving the NHS felt positively about the new powers)
• were older (broadly speaking, support for the powers increases by age)
• were in a rural area (60%)
• were in a more affluent area (57% of those in the least deprived quintile felt positively about the new powers, compared to 39% in the most deprived)

Variation by powers

For each of the potential new powers described in the survey, there were more respondents who saw the power as acceptable than who saw it as unacceptable. The difference between the proportions saying “acceptable” and “unacceptable” ranged from 58 to 19 percentage points. Overall, the power relating to cross-government data-sharing was most commonly seen as acceptable, whilst the proposed arrest powers were least commonly seen as acceptable. The table below presents each of the potential new powers, from those with the highest levels of acceptability to those with the lowest.

Potential power	% Acceptable	% Acceptable among claimants
Government organisations sharing data with DWP about claimants	70%	58%
Asking banks to share information about accounts which look like someone may be committing fraud (figures in brackets indicate perceptions of scenario)	64% (61%)	51% (53%)
Collecting banking information as soon as fraud is suspected, rather than waiting for a criminal investigation	60%	47%
Trained DWP investigators having search and seizure powers	59%	44%
Collecting information about where claimants are spending money (figures in brackets indicate perceptions of scenario)	52% (51%)	37% (42%)
Trained DWP investigators having arrest powers	51%	39%

Figures for acceptable and unacceptable do not sum to 100% due to those saying “neither acceptable nor unacceptable” or “don’t know” (don’t know responses were around 5% for each of the powers).

For powers which were illustrated by a scenario as well as described in general terms, levels of acceptability were similar across both questions, suggesting consistency in views. Scenario responses in the table above are included in brackets.

Two of the potential new powers were seen as “completely unacceptable” by more than 10% of the overall sample: the arrest powers (13%) and the scenario in which DWP could collect information from an airline to see where a claimant is travelling (11%).

Within the group of DWP claimants, there were consistently lower proportions of people considering the new powers to be acceptable and higher proportions of people considering them unacceptable. However, even within this group, there were more people considering the new powers to be acceptable than people who thought they were unacceptable, for every power except collecting information about where claimants were spending money, where more claimants thought it was unacceptable (41%) than acceptable (37%). However, when described in the form of a scenario, more claimants thought this power was acceptable (42%) than unacceptable (36%). Some of these differences were small, with claimants fairly evenly split on the acceptability of arrest powers (39% acceptable vs. 37% unacceptable).

In terms of which powers were most and least acceptable, claimants’ views tended to reflect those of the sample as a whole.

Impact of additional context wording on responses

Half the sample was shown additional or different wording in three of the survey questions. This wording was designed to elicit a more favourable response to the potential powers by briefly explaining the positive impact they could have. For some questions there are differences in response associated with these wording changes. This was not the case in every instance, and where differences exist, they are relatively small compared to differences in opinion between respondents with different views on fraud and error, claimants and non-claimants, and across different ages.

On the question about collecting banking information as soon as fraud is suspected rather than waiting for a full criminal investigation, half the sample saw the additional wording: “This would mean DWP could identify fraud or error more quickly, put claims right, and reduce overpayments and debt.” These respondents were more likely to say the power was acceptable (63%, vs. 56% of those who did not see the wording) and less likely to say it was unacceptable (17% vs. 25%).

On the question about cross-government data sharing, half the sample saw an explanation that this would be used “to prevent benefit fraud or error”, while the other half were told that it would “make sure claimants receive the amount of money they are entitled to”. Those seeing the second explanation were less likely to say the power was unacceptable (9%, vs. 15% seeing the “fraud and error” explanation), though the proportion in each sample seeing it as acceptable was similar.

For the question about DWP asking banks to share information about accounts which look like someone may be committing benefit fraud, half of respondents were shown the additional wording “This would mean DWP could detect fraud and error more easily, stop fraud more quickly and prevent people from being overpaid and building up debt.” However, there were no differences in levels of acceptability between those who saw this message and those who did not.

The additional comms messages did not appear to have an impact on respondents’ overall views on the potential new powers when asked at the end of the survey. Levels of positive or negative attitudes were similar across the half of the sample that had seen the more “positive” wording each time and the half that had not.

1. See Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System ↩

2. Full details for the British Social Attitudes survey and previously published reports, including the 2022 report can be found on The National Centre for Social Research’s website (natcen.ac.uk) ↩

3. For the purposes of this research, DWP customers were defined as people claiming at least one of: Universal Credit, Jobseekers Allowance/New Style Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support, Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)/New Style Employment and Support Allowance, Pension Credit, Carer’s Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Personal Independence Payment or Disability Living Allowance (for themselves or a child). People claiming Tax Credits, Housing Benefit or the State Pension were not counted as DWP customers unless they also claimed one of the benefits listed above. ↩