Department for Work and Pensions: Compensation

(asked on 15th December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many consolatory payments were made by her Department for poor service in each month from March 2020; and what the value of those payments was.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 11th January 2022

DWP makes consolatory payments to acknowledge the non-financial impact of DWP maladministration. The information is recorded quarterly. The number of authorised payments and the total amount paid per quarter in 2020/21 is provided in the table. Equivalent data for 2021/22 will be finalised at the end of the financial year.

DWP Consolatory Payments 2020-21

No. of authorised payments

Amount paid £

Quarter 1

598

67,615

Quarter 2

778

81,306

Quarter 3

1,216

107,050

Quarter 4

1,244

110,069

Total

3,836

366,040

The number and value of special payments authorised in quarter 1 and 2 are significantly lower than quarter 3 and 4. This is because, as part of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department redeployed colleagues normally tasked with special payments to support processing regular claims and payments. As staff moved back into their normal duties, and changes were made to our DWP complaints model to prioritise vulnerable claimants who may be at risk, we saw a temporary increase in special payment referrals from mid Q2, while claims in the system were processed.

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