Social Security Scotland fraud allegation statistics: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request 202300384042

Request for information 1: The number of reports of suspected fraud that Social Security Scotland has received since 2019 (broken down by calendar year).

Request for information 2: The amount of money spent by Social Security Scotland on benefit fraud related projects and services since 2019 (broken down by calendar year).

Request for information 3: The number of clients that have been removed as a recipient of a benefit as a result of benefit fraud investigation since 2019 (broken down by calendar year).

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for:

Request for information 1: The number of reports of suspected fraud that Social Security Scotland has received since 2019 (broken down by calendar year).

Request for information 2: The amount of money spent by Social Security Scotland on benefit fraud related projects and services since 2019 (broken down by calendar year).

Request for information 3: The number of clients that have been removed as a recipient of a benefit as a result of benefit fraud investigation since 2019 (broken down by calendar year).

Within your request for review you expressed dissatisfaction with our response to Request for Information 2 and 3 of FOI 202300384042.

You said –

“I was told ‘To disclose the information requested would give an indication of the size of team involved in this work, jeopardise ongoing fraud prevention work and risk compromising ongoing fraud investigations’.

I reject this rationale.

Any ongoing fraud prevention work wouldn't be compromised because a financial figure or figure of how many people have been removed from the system has been released.

Asserting that it would isn't a justification. You didn't explain or demonstrate why that would be the case.

What would people who are currently being investigated do with that information? Or to put it another way, how could that information be used by someone to compromise or jeopardise ongoing fraud work?

The reason why it is essential for this information to be disclosed is that Social Security Scotland is funded by the taxpayer, therefore how money has been spent to tackle fraud should be transparent and open to scrutiny.

Likewise, the release of the number of how many people have been removed is a reflection of the performance of Social Security Scotland, and once again that is something that should be transparent and open to scrutiny.

Revealing a couple of figures will not in anyway compromise an on going activity or investigation. If it would, then please explain in detail how it would do so.

Otherwise I think these numbers should be released.

I have not, after all, asked for anything that identifies a person or what fraud investigations are doing.”

You were dissatisfied with our response to requests for information 2 and 3, therefore this review is limited to considering the response to requests for information 2 and 3. Within our original response we stated we could not release the information as it was exempt under 35(1)(a) of FOISA.

I have concluded that a different decision should be substituted in relation to parts 2 and 3 of your request.

Request for Information 2

I have concluded that the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600.

The information that Social Security Scotland holds in relation to spend for fraud related projects is not disaggregated from the wider team that it is part of. Fraud is part of the wider service area of Fraud and Error Resolution which includes identification, assessment, mitigation and correction of both insider and benefit fraud, official and client induced error, recharge to estates, debt recovery and payment resolution. To calculate the costs that were attributed to solely fraud related projects and services from 2019 would require a manual trawl of reports to separate the fraud spends from the other areas in the service.

Under Section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under Section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. You could do this by limiting your request to a shorter time frame or by a particular spend line for example such as staffing. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

In order to assist you, the overall spend per calendar year for Fraud and Error Resolution is as follows:

Please find this spend by calendar year below.

Calendar Year	Fraud and Error Resolution Spend
2019	£851,383
2020	£2,169,513
2021	£3,719,444
2022	£7,614,933
2023	£9,570,201

I have also enclosed a report with an extract of the spends for Fraud and Error Resolution for January and February 2019 to help you understand some of the costs and how we record this information. (Please note this extract excludes staffing costs.)

Request for Information 3

I have concluded that the exemption at s35(1)(a) (substantial prejudice to the prevention or detection of crime) does not apply to the information requested, so I am withdrawing our reliance on that exemption. However, I have further concluded that an exemption under section 30(c) of FOISA (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) applies to the information requested at part 3 of your request. I have concluded that disclosing this information would substantially prejudice the Government’s ability to prevent fraudulent activity.

Established fraud risk management theory maintains that a threat actor’s decision to commit fraud is informed by their assessment of three main factors: motivation, rationalisation and opportunity.

The assessment of a threat actor’s opportunity relates to the perceived ease of achieving success balanced against the risk of detection and severity of punishment. Increased opportunity to exploit vulnerabilities, and/or decreased risk of detection and punishment (or simply a perception of this) will have directly aggravating impacts on our fraud risk profile – increasing the number of threat actors who would seek to test our defences which could in turn undermine the effectiveness of our fraud response due to those increased volumes of attacks.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, there is a greater public interest in maintaining the Agency’s ability to prevent fraudulent activity and thus protecting the public purse from potentially increased loss.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202300387636 - Information released - Annex

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