Britain's tax authority is reviewing its decision to axe child benefit payments for roughly 23,500 claimants. The move was made in an anti-fraud drive that relied on travel records to assess whether families had permanently relocated abroad, sources suggest.

Now HM Revenue and Customs has issued an apology "to those whose payments have been suspended incorrectly" and said swift measures have been implemented to revise the procedure following concerns about the initiative. Through a trial programme designed to combat fraud and system errors, the tax department announced in August that £17 million in improper payments had been prevented over a 12-month period.

However, officials have subsequently begun examining individual cases using PAYE records to establish how many genuine claimants ha

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