Research and analysis

Targeted Case Review Management Information

Published 22 May 2025

Background 

Targeted Case Review (TCR) was established in 2022 to identify and address incorrectness across Universal Credit (UC) claims, providing vital insight on new and emerging ways to identify fraud and error entering the social security system.  

The focus has been to scale at pace to reach the target of 5,930 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) reviewing agents blended across DWP and external provider TP (formally known as Teleperformance) agents by March 2025, with the aim of saving £13.6 billion in Annually Managed Expenditure (AME) by March 2030. 

Since its inception to the end of the latest financial year (FY) 2024 to 2025, TCR has reviewed over 1 million claims, achieving expected AME savings of over £1 billion. 

Methodology Information 

Annually Managed Expenditure (AME) 

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has a well-established method for estimating the impact on AME savings due to our fraud and error activities. This includes the detection and recovery of all historic overpayments, and savings associated with the prevention of the future duration of that overpayment.  

When DWP finds error on a claim, we estimate how long that overpayment would have continued, had DWP not identified and intervened. To do this we calculate the weekly or monthly value of the change to entitlement, or ‘Monetary Value of Adjustment’ (MVA) and apply an assumed duration depending on the benefit in error. We call this the Future Overpayment Prevented (FOP) methodology^{[footnote 1]}.  

These prevented overpayments can either be considered achieved by the month the TCR activity occurred Table 1, or the month the payment would otherwise have been made Table 2. Detected overpayments are considered achieved by the month the error was found in both cases.

Data 

There are steep increases due to the rapid scaling up of TCR and, in FY 2024 to 2025, TCR reached full scale with the number of agents reviewing cases.  

Table 1 shows TCR achieved AME savings of £37 million in its first operational year, 2022 to 2023. As TCR has scaled, this has led to £901 million saved in 2024 to 2025. Since TCR’s inception, it has saved over £1 billion in AME across the three financial years. 

Table 1: Total AME savings achieved, attributed to the month the error was found

	FY 2022 to 2023	FY 2023 to 2024	FY 2024 to 2025	Total
AME savings	£37 million	£230 million	£901 million	£1,168 million

Notes 

1. Figures have been rounded to the nearest £1 million
2. Rows may not sum to totals due to rounding

The alternate methodology shown in Table 2, reports the same £1,168 million savings, but attributes them to the year in which their impact on the government’s finances is felt. This is necessary to align with the way the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) tracks spending and savings.  

Table 2 shows that, in its first operational year 2022 to 2023, TCR achieved £14 million in AME savings. As TCR has scaled, this has increased to £478 million in savings in 2024 to 2025. Since TCR’s inception, it has saved £581 million in AME across the three financial years – the rest of the £1,168 million will appear in later years. 

Table 2: Total AME savings achieved, attributed to the month the prevented payment would have occurred

	FY 2022 to 2023	FY 2023 to 2024	FY 2024 to 2025	Total
AME savings	£14 million	£89 million	£478 million	£581 million

Notes 

1. The figures for 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 have previously been published in the DWP Annual Report and Accounts 
2. Figures have been rounded to the nearest £1 million 
3. Rows may not sum to totals due to rounding 

Table 3 shows TCR completed 24,180 case reviews in 2022 to 2023, ramping up to complete 202,130 reviews in 2023 to 2024 and 923,630 in 2024 to 2025. In total the programme has reviewed 1,149,940 cases by the end of 2024 to 2025.  

Of these cases, 243,600 (21%) were found to have incorrectness on their claim. The volume of claims found with incorrectness through the review process has increased from 7,630 in 2022 to 2023, and 48,180 in 2023 to 2024 to 187,800 in 2024 to 2025. However, as a proportion of the reviews completed, it has reduced from 32% in 2022 to 2023, and 24% in 2023 to 2024 to 20% in 2024 to 2025. Incorrectness identified includes claims which are underpaid as well as overpaid.  

Table 3: Volume of reviews completed, and incorrectness found

	FY 2022 to 2023	FY 2023 to 2024	FY 2024 to 2025	Total
Volume of reviews completed	24,180	202,130	923,630	1,149,940
Volume of claims with incorrectness	7,630	48,180	187,800	243,600
Proportion of incorrectness from reviews completed	32%	24%	20%	21%

Notes 

1. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10
2. Proportion is calculated by dividing volume of claims with incorrectness by the volume of reviews completed in each financial year
3. Rows may not sum to totals due to rounding

Data Sources

Management Information (MI) is data collected by DWP to track performance and inform decisions. 

Data is sourced from DWP MI on Targeted Case Review. This relies on manual inputs from agents which can be subject to errors. However, DWP provides guidance and training to minimise the likelihood of errors. The outputs are periodically checked by analysts for verification. 

Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics  

The Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code)^{[footnote 2]} is built around three main concepts, or pillars:  

• trustworthiness – is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics

• quality – is about using data and methods that produce assured statistics

• value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs for information

The following explains how we have applied the pillars of the Code in a proportionate way:

Trustworthiness  

This publication uses internal management information used directly within the Targeted Case Review Project and has been quality assured in line with standards set by ad-hoc releases.  

The analysis has been signed off by an expert Senior Statistician and the Head of Profession for Statistics. 

Quality  

The management information includes data collected via manual input from agents. Training and communications have been carried out and agents are given guidance on how to use the system and input the data. The outputs and guidance are continuously reviewed to minimise the risk of input error. 

Value  

This release provides a progress update on the Targeted Case Review Project and context for the figures used. DWP publishing this data benefits the public through openness and transparency as the public can view data related to TCR and critique it freely. 

Making this information accessible can also reduce the administrative burden of answering Parliamentary Questions (PQs), Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and ad-hoc queries about Targeted Case Review.

1. Further information on the AME savings methodology can be found in the Annex of Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System: Going Further - GOV.UK. Further data on TCR performance can be found in the Department for Work and Pensions Annual Report and Accounts 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024. ↩

2. Find information About the Code – Code of Practice for Statistics. ↩