Crackdown on people wrongly claiming child benefit abroad

The government is planning a rift on those who continue to claim child benefits after leaving the UK, in one step it expects to save £ 350m in the next five years.

Contenders outside the UK for more than eight weeks will generally not be eligible for profit unless there are extraordinary conditions.

A new expert team will use track data to track if the claimants have gone abroad and are no longer entitled to pay.

It follows a pilot, which was incorrectly paid to 2,600 people who left the UK.

A team of 15 investigators had incorrectly paid in less than 12 months.

From next month, more than 200 people will work on the team.

The government hopes that the move will increase awareness about the rules to continue to claim benefits by mistake when they are abroad for an extended period.

Child advantage is one of the most widely accessed forms of profit in Britain, which has been paid to more than 6.9 million families.

It is understood that the government is now planning to look at other benefits, people who are claiming abroad whether more money can be brought back.

Overall, profit fraud has increased since the epidemic, although the level has begun to fall in recent years, with renewed efforts by the government to deal with the issue.

In 2024/25, the estimated £ 6.5BN in excess of profit due to fraud, According to department data for work and pensionAll profit equal to 2.2% of expenditure.

Overpament rates are higher for resource-testing benefits such as universal credit.

People responsible for children below 16 years of age, or are under 20 years of age if in approved education or training, can claim child benefits.

This is £ 26.05 per week for the largest child and £ 17.25 a week for any young children.

The claimants must inform HMRC whether they go abroad for more than 8 weeks because after the length of this time they will no longer be eligible for profit, Unless there are extraordinary circumstances,

The time limit of going abroad for medical treatment or the death of a family member is 12 weeks.

Cabinet office minister Georgia Gold said: “This government is stopping those who are claiming profit when they are not eligible to do so.

“Since September, we will have ten times as many investigators will save the money of crores of pounds of taxpayers.

“If you are claiming the benefits you are not entitled, then your time is over.”

The pilot, which was performed by the public sector fraud authority, home office and HMRC, matched random samples of 200,000 child advantage records with international travel data.

It was organized under the Digital Economy Act 2017, which introduced a framework to share personal data for specific purposes in some parts of the public sector.

Where the data suggested that the claimant had left the country, HMRC expert investigators made their own checks before deciding whether the benefits were being incorrectly claimed.

The government said that every case was reviewed by a human investigator and HMRC would contact families directly as part of any investigation.

It is understood that in small amounts of per capita it means that it often does not make sense to seek prosecution for the government if someone is found to be fakely claiming profit.