In the last three years, the DWP has lost over £8bn consistently due to fraud and is setting its sights on sharing data between banks and financial institutions, which it is currently not allowed to do, to crack down on fraud levels. In 2021/22 the total loss was £8.6bn.

The preferred option for DWP is for the government to introduce primary legislation requiring third parties, such as banks, to share information with DWP on data related to potential benefit fraud. This is currently going through in the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill.

DWP has already run a trial with two unnamed banks for three-month periods in 2017 and 2022.