Bureaucrats’ mistakes cost taxpayers £560m

Commenting on benefit fraud and error statistics released last week, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Danny Alexander said:

"We now have a benefits system so complex that even Government officials can’t understand it. It is absolutely unacceptable that the amount wasted because of official error has risen in the past year to £560m.

"Ministers have spent £3.9m since 2001 on campaigns to tackle benefit fraud, but yet again we see that the system is being exploited at massive cost to taxpayers.

"The targets to reduce fraud and error have been missed by a mile, yet ministers still insist there is nothing wrong with the benefits system.

"The Government must take radical action to tackle this problem: we cannot continue to lose almost £2bn a year for all the same reasons. There can be no more excuses."