Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to tackle the under-payment errors in benefits.

The Department understands the importance of paying the right money to each of its customers and will continue to tackle the causes of underpayments, as part of the wider approach to ensure claimants are paid the amount that they are entitled to.

The majority of underpayments arise through claimants failing to correctly report their circumstances to the Department. We work hard to make it as easy as possible for claimants to understand their obligations.

We also make use of data matching which allows us to identify potential discrepancies in claims. This allows us to ensure these claims are updated, and that claimants receive their correct entitlement.

In addition, the Department is focused on reducing Departmental error. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Department’s Quality Assurance Team reviewed a sample of all cases to help better understand the cause of Departmental error and identify the highest risk errors so action could be taken. However, in order to deal with the significant increase in the number of claims being made for Universal Credit and other benefits, many of these staff were redeployed to support benefit paying operations. This work will recommence as soon as resources allow.