DWP reveals exact information banks have to share about benefit claimants

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has revealed the information banks must share with the government under its controversial ‘spying bill’.

Following the passage of the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act in December, the department has gained new powers to request information from benefit claimants’ bank accounts, and to directly recover funds in certain circumstances.

An official update has specified the exact scope of the information that may be requested by DWP agents. These include the names of all account holders, details of any held accounts (including linked and joint accounts), account numbers, and sort codes.

Alongside this, the DWP can request information about how much money is in relevant accounts, and the date of transactions that took place in another country.

The update confirms that the government will not be able to see live bank transactions or statements. Officials also add that the powers currently only apply to universal credit, pension credit and new style ESA.

The key power that will enable agents to require banks to share financial information is called the Eligibility Verification Measure (EVM). Any bank or financial institution sent an EVM must comply with the request, or face a financial penalty.

This will require the bank to do a sweep of all its account to find which match certain ‘eligibility indicators’ defined by the DWP in its request. It will then tell the department “when a personal account into which a relevant benefit is paid meets an eligibility indicator,” the update states.

These powers have been introduced to enable the government to determine if an individual is eligible for a benefit they are claiming based on their financial circumstances.

For example, holding over £16,000 in savings generally will generally render an claimant ineligible for Universal Credit.

The new bill has also given the DWP the power to deduct money directly from bank accounts using a ‘Direct Deduction Order’. Ministers have indicated that they estimate between 5,000 and 20,000 orders will be made every year, in a bid to claw back overpayments.

Welfare overpayments totalled £9.9bn in 2025/26, a rate of 3.2 per cent. Of this, 2.2 per cent was attributed to fraud, 0.6 per cent to claimant error, and 0.4 per cent to official error.

Labour has said the measures form part of the “biggest fraud crackdown in a generation,” pledging to save £1.5bn by 2029/30.

But critics of the new powers have labelled them as “intrusive”, with civil liberties watchdog Big Brother Watch previously warning that they threaten to “usher in an unprecedented system of mass financial surveillance.”

They come alongside other new initiatives to reduce overpayments in the welfare system, with an ongoing Universal Credit review campaign set to save £13bn by the end of the decade.

The DWP also launched a similar campaign this year focusing on pension credit in a bid to cut a further £370 million from the work. Around 95,000 to 100,000 claimants will see their payments reduced during the campaign, The Independent recently revealed.