A specialist team of over 200 people being employed from next month for the scheme that ministers expect will save £350m over the next five years.
The Government will stop people who have left the UK for more than eight weeks from being eligible for payments unless they are found to be in exceptional circumstances.
The rate is currently set at £25.05 per week for the eldest child, with an additional £17.25 for any other children.
A pilot of the scheme saw a team of 15 investigators delivering savings of £17m in under a year. Photo: Sean Gladwell via Getty Images.
Individuals who have been recorded as claiming child benefit payments for a particularly long time, as well as those clearly living abroad for an extended period, will be targeted under the crackdown.
Who will still receive payments?
Circumstances such as the death of a family member and medical treatment for a claimant or their family would be considered an exceptional circumstance. In this instance, people would receive child benefit payments for up to 12 weeks while abroad.
People receiving other benefits such as the state pension or New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance could also continue to receive child benefit payments.
Crown servants are also entitled to continued child benefit payments while working anywhere outside the UK, as long as they were either living in or posted to the UK before being posted abroad.
The rate of benefit fraud has sharply increased since the Covid pandemic, peaking at approximately 3 per cent of the total benefits expenditure, but figures have slightly fallen in recent years following government intervention.
“From September, we’ll have ten times as many investigators saving hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money.
£17m saved in trial crackdown
A pilot of the scheme saw 2,600 people being removed from the child benefit system after being found to continue to claim payments since leaving the UK, with a team of 15 investigators delivering savings of £17m in under a year.
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Specialist investigators would then check data which suggested claimants had left the country to determine whether benefits were being claimed incorrectly.
A Cabinet Office source said the new scheme does not intend to automatically cut off benefits for any claimants, with every case being reviewed by a human investigator and families being directly contacted to ensure a swift resolution.
Anyone living in the UK who is responsible for a child under 16, or under 20 if they stay in approved education or training, is eligible for child benefit payments.
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