The findings of an official review have been issued after mistakes triggered heavy criticism of the government
Thousands of people have wrongly had their child benefit taken away in a major official blunder, a government review has found. HMRC has announced the results of a review into around 24,000 cases after a row broke out over errors made in an attempt to crackdown on fraud.
In November, the revenue and customs body said it was carrying out the review after concerns were raised about a new effort to clamp down on wrongful payments of child benefit. That drive had seen around 23,500 claimants have their child benefit stopped because checks by officials had suggested they were no longer entitled because they had left the UK permanently. However, mistakes were made in these checks.
Criticisms were levelled at officials after it emerged that PAYE checks had not been carried out on these cases – checks that would have offered real-time information on people’s employment and earnings. Instead, they had relied on Home Office data which it later turned out was in many cases not providing a full picture.
In fact, many people flagged as having left the UK had actually just gone on a short holiday. Now HMRC officials have completed a review of those cases to see how many people wrongly had their child benefit stopped – and how many are not entitled to it.
HMRC under the spotlight in House of Commons
The information emerged after Tory MP Andrew Snowden asked in a parliamentary question “how many of the 23,500 compliance enquiries (i) were confirmed to be eligible, (ii) were found to have been incorrectly receiving the benefit and (iii) are yet to receive an outcome.”
Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson said: “HMRC has now completed its review of Child Benefit compliance cases where a PAYE check had not been undertaken. As of 30 November 2025, out of the 23,794 cases opened between August and October 2025, 14,994 Child Benefit customers have been confirmed to be eligible to Child Benefit.
“Of the remaining 8,800 cases, 1,019, have been determined to have been incorrectly receiving Child Benefit, and 7,781 enquiries remain open as the customer has not yet provided evidence to enable a final determination of residency.”
HMRC had in its initial pilot for the scheme used PAYE data. But HMRC chief executive John-Paul Marks said the PAYE checks were removed in order to ‘streamline the process’ when the scheme was expanded.
Mr Tomlinson said in his response that the errors came after the initial pilot. He said: “The data from the 23,794 cases is not comparable with the pilot. Recognising the issues with the implementation of the expansion, HMRC put in place an expediated process for customers that varied from the way it applied checks in the pilot. The information from the pilot remains HMRC’s best assessment of the effectiveness of the activity using international travel data to reduce error and fraud.”
Senior MP’s criticisms of HMRC
At the time the error emerged last month chair of the Treasury Committee, Dame Meg Hillier, said officials had been ‘cavalier’ with people’s finances. She said: “HMRC is absolutely right to look at innovative ways to fight fraud and error in our system.
“I’m afraid, though, that it appears they have been cavalier with people’s finances, making the arbitrary decision to remove necessary checks and causing a mess they are now forced to clean up.
“I understand they must try to remove any unnecessary bureaucracy within their processes but this is a costly error. It is right that they have apologised. When they next appear in front of our Committee, in the new year, we will certainly be pressing them on the lessons they have learned from this mistake.”
HMRC apology
HMRC apologised after the blunders emerged. A government spokesperson said when the news broke: “We’re very sorry to those whose payments have been suspended incorrectly.
“We have taken immediate action to update the process, giving customers one month to respond before payments are suspended. We remain committed to protecting taxpayers’ money and are confident that the majority of suspensions are accurate.”
In September, the government launched a clampdown on child benefit fraud. It vowed to save £350m over five years.
