UK CLAMPSDOWN ON ABROAD CHILD BENEFIT CLAIMS- UK Govt says 2,600 people living abroad have been removed from the welfare system
Ministers have announced a clampdown on people who continually claim child benefit payments after moving abroad, in a bid to save £350m in five years. The UK government said 2,600 people who had left the UK but still claimed the benefit had already been removed from the welfare system.
Tens of thousands more people who are fraudulently or erroneously claiming child benefit while living outside the UK now face having their payments stopped as part of the government’s crackdown.
The Cabinet Office is increasing the number of officials working on stopping child benefit fraud and error to 200 from next month, following a pilot programme in which 15 investigators stopped £17m in wrongful payments in less than a year.
Child benefit is paid to more than 6.9 million families to support 11.9 million children, and is one of the most commonly accessed benefits in the UK. People are no longer eligible to claim the benefit if they are outside the UK for more than eight weeks, barring exceptional circumstances.
