Home Office’s ‘out-of-date’ grasp of fraud highlighted by watchdog

The NAO head, Gareth Davies, said the government’s approach ‘lacked clarity of purpose’. Photograph: The National Audit Office

The Home Office has an incomplete and out-of-date grasp of the cost of fraud in the UK and a poor understanding of who commits the crime, a public spending watchdog has found.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said the current estimate of the cost of fraud to individuals being used by the government is based on data and prices from six years ago.