In a major fraud crackdown, the government used AI based data-matching technology, and specialist investigators to target fraud by thousands of different companies, particularly fraudulent bounce back loans and council tax fraud, as well as removing 2,600 people from social housing lists who were illegally subletting their discounted homes at the taxpayers’ expense.

The AI system scans policies and procedures for weaknesses before they can be exploited by fraudsters, helping make policies ‘fraud-proof’ when the documentation is being drafted.  

Public sector pension fraud was rooted out after payments continued after the pensioners had died and their relatives continued to claim the money, recovering over £68m, while nearly 40% of the fraud was related to covid schemes, totalling £186m.