Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will provide a breakdown of the number of Universal Credit Official Error overpayments from 1 January 2018 to 6 December 2022, broken down by region.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) pays welfare benefits to around 23 million people.
We are unable to provide information on actual Universal Credit official error overpayments referred for recovery, as there is no longer a requirement to categorise a Universal Credit overpayment, other than where fraud has occurred. Overpayment data (both estimates and actuals) is not broken down by region.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the answer of 1 December to Question 95843, what was the total number of Universal Credit Official Error overpayments in Hounslow from 1 January 2018 to 6 December 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) pays welfare benefits to around 23 million people.
We are unable to provide information on actual Universal Credit official error overpayments referred for recovery, as there is no longer a requirement to categorise a Universal Credit overpayment, other than where fraud has occurred. Overpayment data (both estimates and actuals) is not broken down by region.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December to Question UIN 95843, how many Universal Credit Official Error overpayments there were from 1 January 2018 to 6 December 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) pays welfare benefits to around 23 million people.
We are unable to provide information on actual Universal Credit official error overpayments referred for recovery, as there is no longer a requirement to categorise a Universal Credit overpayment, other than where fraud has occurred. Overpayment data (both estimates and actuals) is not broken down by region.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the number of Universal Credit overpayments made in the last year in which his Department was at fault.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The findings in the latest National Statistics publication (Financial Year Ending 2022) into Universal Credit (UC) show that UC Official Error overpayments have fallen in each of the last 3 years, from 2.1% of UC expenditure in 2018/19 to 0.7% in 2021/22.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams, establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing 2 million existing Universal Credit (UC) claims and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error. More information on our Fraud Plan can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Government is investing £1.4billion of funding over the next three years in order to combat fraud and error, which includes a further £613 million to facilitate a number of new initiatives, which collectively will stop an estimated £2.0 billion of loss in fraud and error over the next three years. An additional £280m to help prevent abuse of the system and drive forward UC case checks was announced in the recent Autumn Statement.
This builds on the existing work DWP have done to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 5.13 of the Autumn Statement, CP 751 published on 17 November 2022, whether his Department plans to assign any of the £280 million allocated to target benefit fraud, error and debt to the large-scale exercise to correct state pension underpayments; and if he will make a statement on the progress of that exercise.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
As set out in the Autumn Statement, the government is taking further action to protect taxpayer money by investing an extra £280 million between now and 2024-25 to target fraud, error and debt across the benefits system. This funding will expand fraud and error capabilities in DWP to help prevent abuse of the system. The expansion will better equip DWP to proactively review and correct Universal Credit claims that are at risk of fraud, and help prevent, detect and correct overpayments across the entire benefits system.
The Government is fully committed to ensuring that these historical State Pension errors, made by successive Governments, are addressed as quickly as possible. We have set up a dedicated team and devoted significant resources towards completing the exercise, with further resources being allocated throughout 2023. In line with previous commitments to publish further Management Information related to the State Pension underpayments exercise around the time of fiscal events. DWP will be publishing the next update shortly.
Overall, Official Error Underpayment rates for State Pension remain low, at 0.5% of benefit expenditure.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many times his Department has used its discretionary waiver for Universal Credit overpayments in the last year.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Department for Work and Pensions waived 25 Universal Credit overpayments in the last year.
Waivers are only granted in exceptional circumstances, usually where the recovery of the overpayment is causing substantial medical and/or financial hardship, and it can be clearly demonstrated that the debtor’s circumstances will only improve by waiver of the debt.
However, any claimants struggling with the proposed rate of deductions are encouraged to contact DWP Debt Management to discuss affordability, so that a lower repayment rate can be negotiated as appropriate.
More information on the waiver process can be found at Chapter 8 of the department’s Benefit Overpayment Recovery Guide:
Benefit overpayment recovery guide - GOV.UK(www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has taken recent steps to improve the detection of Universal Credit overpayments.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government is investing £1.4billion of funding over the next three years in order to combat fraud and error, which includes a further £613 million to facilitate a number of new initiatives, which collectively will stop an estimated £2.0 billion of loss in fraud and error over the next three years.
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams; establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing 2 million existing Universal Credit claims and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.
More information on our Fraud Plan, can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
This builds on the existing work DWP has done to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much in total his Department has spent on the Enhanced Checking Service since April 2020; and how much in total his Department has recovered in fraudulently claimed welfare benefits as a result of the Enhanced Checking Service.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Enhanced Checking Service (ECS) was introduced in April 2020 to support Universal Credit colleagues who were observing potentially fraudulent claims from people looking to exploit the easements implemented to support customers during the Covid pandemic.
ECS now operates as part of DWP’s Counter Fraud, Compliance & Debt (CFCD) ‘Disrupt’ function, whose workload is primarily driven by potential threats identified by DWP’s Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service.
ECS costs cannot be separated from the costs of the wider Disrupt teams, which in 2021/22 (the last full year for which data is available) were £19.7 million. This figure includes staffing, management, and training costs.
No cost information is available in relation to the ECS team for the 2020/21 financial year. This is because ECS funding was part of the wider CFCD budget during this period and cannot be meaningfully separated out.
Whilst recovery of benefit overpayments resulting from fraud cannot be attributed to the work of individual teams, I can confirm that in 2021/22, our Disrupt teams actioned 485,000 cases, with an estimated saving of £671 million in potential losses through fraud.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of overpayments of Universal Credit identified as part of the Risk Review Process related to (a) identity verification, (b) right to reside, (c) housing costs verification and (d) other issues.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.