Government anti-fraud programme reveals £68m in wrongful public sector pensions payments

It also announced £36m in savings after a crackdown on single-person council tax fraud.

More than 2,600 people were meanwhile removed from housing waiting lists they were not entitled to be on, including individuals who were subletting or had multiple tenancies unlawfully.

The Government announced the savings alongside details of fraud prevention in other public sector areas, which it said stopped more than £480m in losses between April 2024 and April 2025 in total.

The Cabinet Office Minister, Josh Simons, said the programme used new AI fraud prevention tools as part of its efforts. 

Its fraud prevention work on pension schemes covered the NHS Pension Scheme, Civil Service Pensions and Armed Forces pension schemes, as well as the local government pension scheme.

It said that the savings were achieved by identifying cases where pension payments continued after the individual had died, often with relatives continuing to claim benefits they were not entitled to.

The Government also stopped more than 37,000 fraudulent single-person council tax discount claims.

"These false claims, often made by individuals misrepresenting their household size to secure a 25% discount, were uncovered using advanced data-matching," it said.

Adam Carey