DWP Risk Review Team

Kate Osamor Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Before I call Kate Osamor to move the motion, I inform Members that this debate will conclude no later than 4.55 pm.

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Department for Work and Pensions’ Risk Review Team.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Today, I will talk about the Department for Work and Pensions risk review team, which was set up in May 2020. The DWP states that the team’s role is to

“review and take action on cases identified”

by the integrated risk and intelligence service as being “a high fraud risk.”

I was first alerted to the team’s existence in October 2021, when my constituency office began to receive contact from what would become a total of 29 constituents who had had their universal credit payments suspended indefinitely under almost identical circumstances. Those constituents are all Bulgarian nationals and tend to have either settled status or pre-settled status. Time and again, my office was told that the cases were under the management of the risk review team, with little to no further explanation of the reason, apart from some claims of suspicion of fraud. Constituents told me that their claims were suspended for months on end—as long as 11 months, in the worst case. Although that particular constituent’s claim has now been restored, they have received no compensation for the hardship caused.

The DWP provides no timeframe for the completion of the reviews, nor a right of appeal. A significant number of those constituents are single mothers who work part time. This situation has left them in a completely crippling financial position and pushed many into serious destitution—relying on food banks, facing eviction from their homes and racking up serious amounts of debt. One constituent, whom I will call Maria, is a constituent of mine only after she lost her home in Liverpool as a result of having her benefits suspended, and subsequently moved to Edmonton.

From the cases my office has been handling, a number of constituents have since had their universal credit payments restored and backdated, as there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I have constituents coming regularly into my office—you probably do as well, Mr Twigg—asking for help on this matter, although they may not be Bulgarian. Those constituents say that the DWP has asked them for information. I always ask, “Well, have you got that information?” to which they reply, “We are not quite sure.” Does the hon. Lady think that when an application is refused, whatever the reasons may be, the Department should make officers and staff available to help that person to get the right information and respond? The people she mentioned had their benefits restored, but they would not have had to wait had it been done right the first time around.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Osamor]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point, which I will come to later. I back everything that he has said, because the claimants need much more support. For many claimants, English is their second language, so the more support the Department can give them, the better.

We have seen few claims disallowed for reasons of constituents failing a habitual residency test, and none that we have seen have had their claims closed for fraud. All that raises a series of questions for the Minister. How many fraudulent claims have been discovered by the risk review team? What justification is being used for the original investigation and suspension of claims? Has the Department undertaken an equality impact assessment to ensure that the process is not resulting in direct or indirect discrimination? I ask those questions because, sadly, there did not appear to be much information publicly available about the risk review team, and the Department appears reluctant to enlighten me further. I wrote to the Minister about these issues on 26 November 2021, and I received a response only yesterday evening. I am very grateful for that response, despite having to chase the Department nearly four times.

I have also asked a series of written questions. In response to one of them, the Minister for welfare delivery stated that as of 24 December last year, 149,000 cases—approximately 3.74% of universal credit claims—had been suspended under the risk review process. We have found out that 3% of claimants in those cases had their benefits reinstated. However, using the argument that to do so would mean incurring disproportionate costs, the Department has so far declined to confirm what has happened to the other 97% of cases.

Let me ask the Minister some more questions. How many claims have been deemed to be fraudulent and subsequently closed? How many claims remain suspended? How many people who we have not yet heard about are suffering in silence, not just in Edmonton but across the country? This issue is especially concerning because the cases I have seen predominantly concern claimants for whom English is a second language. Many face real difficulties accessing services, and that can create barriers to communicating with the Department directly and to accessing outside advice and assistance.

Some appear to have had their claims referred to the risk review team after being unable to answer security questions over the phone. I am unsure how much assistance they are given in the process if there are language barriers. In response to written questions, the Department has stated that there is a “high risk of fraud” in these cases, and that all claims are “suspended pending contact” with the claimant and them providing the requested information. It has also insinuated that the cases are related to organised crime, and yet in our experience the majority of those who are impacted appear to be vulnerable single mums who have done nothing wrong.

I can speak only for my constituency, but the brunt of the policy appears to have fallen overwhelming on Bulgarian nationals. Charities working in the local area, such as Citizens Advice Enfield and the Edmonton Community Partnership, concur with that assessment. From the many organisations I have spoken to that have similar cases, I have heard of Romanian and Polish nationals being affected, but no British citizens or those of other nationalities. Tellingly, those affected are all EU citizens.

Thus far, the Department has said that it does not keep demographic data on nationality, making it impossible to produce conclusive proof, but I understand that the Department does hold data on claimants’ nationality at the point of national insurance number registration. While we remain in the dark about how this opaque team conducts its business, and with the cases that I know about being so overwhelmingly concentrated among Bulgarian nationals and other EU nationals, it is impossible not to suspect that potentially discriminatory practices are being carried out.

Considering the issues that I have raised, I have a series of recommendations for the Minister. First, I urge the Department to change its “guilty until proven innocent” approach. The Department clearly does not have the resources to process the cases in a timely manner. I understand that there are roughly 165 full-time equivalent staff on the team. It seems likely that thousands of people are left languishing for many months, effectively under no recourse to public funds conditions, even if they are entitled to claim benefits and have committed no wrongdoing. Claims should be suspended only if evidence of fraud is found, with the review and an initial decision made prior to that course of action.

Secondly, the team must provide proper assistance to those whose cases are being investigated. It must appreciate the barriers that may exist to providing evidence. The whole process has appeared opaque and complex to my caseworkers and me, let alone someone for whom English is not their first language.

The DWP must also appreciate the barriers to providing documents—learning lessons, for example, from the Windrush scandal—as there may be deeper reasons why claimants are unable to provide certain pieces of evidence. The Independent reported on a Bulgarian national who was subject to the risk review process and was asked to provide every page of their old passport. However, that was impossible, as the Bulgarian embassy in London reportedly takes expired passports when citizens apply for a new one. That should be urgently be looked into, and an equalities impact assessment should be carried out.

Thirdly, the DWP should provide adequate compensation to those who have had their claims wrongly suspended. I know of constituents who have had their lives turned completely upside down, in some cases losing homes and acquiring significant debt, not to mention the stress and anxiety caused by the months of waiting.

Backdating payments does not make up for the impact of the process. Of all the cases my office has dealt with, only one constituent has received any compensation. They were granted a consolatory special payment of £200 because of delays in a mandatory reconsideration decision and the outcome of the risk review action. That sum is nowhere near enough to make amends for the seven months in which they waited for more than £10,000, which they were entitled to receive during that time. We need a proper compensation scheme for those who have been seriously affected by the way that the risk review team has conducted its business.

Lastly, and crucially, the DWP must be more transparent. More than 140,000 claimants have been affected by the risk review team. There must be greater awareness of the way in which it operates. Currently, it appears to be operating with impunity. Guidance should be published on how the team works in identifying and investigating cases. The DWP should also make public how many cases remain suspended, and what percentage of those have been closed after the Department came to the decision that it believed the claim was indeed fraudulent.

Transparency and scrutiny are essential for good governance. Any new policy that may cause negative consequences must be identified and then, ideally, addressed quickly. The hardship being caused to my constituents, which I have spoken about today, may not be an intentional effect of this policy but, for one reason or another, they are getting trapped in this net. It is imperative that we understand why. I urge the Minister to take on board the stories that I have relayed today and to urgently review the operations of the risk review team, with the seriousness that the situation deserves, before many more lives are torn apart.