Clawing back just £1bn of public money lost to fraud would pay for 31,000 nurses and health visitors for a year, 14,000 care beds, 14,000 more police officers for a year, it added.
It came a day after a damning report from the state spending watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, which accused the Government of “being soft” on scammers and writing off billions in coronavirus loan scheme losses. It referenced HM Revenue & Customs estimates which said just a third of the Covid-19 support funds lost to fraud and error in 2020-21 were recoverable.
It will heap yet further pressure on Boris Johnson to address soaring levels of financial crime and on the Chancellor to claw back wasted public money. The Prime Minister was accused this week of playing down the situation, after he claimed crime was down by 14pc, failing to mention official figures on fraud, which have pushed overall crime levels up 14pc.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng also came under fire for saying scams were not problems that “people experience in their daily lives”, despite the figures from the Office for National Statistics showing the public are more likely to be a victim of fraud than any other crime.
The controversy followed the resignation of Tory peer Lord Agnew, who quit as Minister to the Treasury and Cabinet Office in January over what he described as the Government’s “schoolboy” handling of Covid fraud. Income tax could be cut by 1p if the Government took action, he said at the time. It prompted Rishi Sunak to insist he was going after “each and every” Covid fraudster.
FTI’s Andrew Durant, who authored the report, said: “We don’t take fraud seriously in this country, unlike in America where there is legislation that has required public sector agencies to publish statistically valid estimates of the extent of fraud and error for over a decade, providing an incentive to prevent fraud in the first place.
“They have been working for years to claw back money lost in schemes after the last crisis, whereas in Britain we seem to have written off billions in losses already.
“Any reduction in fraud on taxpayer money must be seen as a priority,” he said.
The Public Accounts Committee called on the Government and HMRC to reassure the public it was serious about tackling fraud and asked them to revise its “unambitious” plans on clawing back public funds.
