Universal credit claimants incurred more than £490m in debt last year due to hundreds of thousands of errors made by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), The i Paper can reveal.
Official errors led to more than 680,000 universal credit overpayments in 2023/24, which are either deducted from recipients’ benefits or incurred as debt.
Overpayments stemming from official errors could occur when the DWP does not register income or savings recipients have that would entitle them to smaller amounts of universal credit.
The value of overpayments made in 2023/24 amounted to £494m, according to the DWP figures.
Benefits claimants said the DWP errors occurred when they were already “living hand-to-mouth” and described the debt they faced as “soul destroying”.
While overpayment debts can be waived, this occurred just 75 times last year – or in 0.01 per cent of cases – according to the data, which was obtained through Freedom of Information (FoI) laws.
Debt of about £865,000 was waived, which was just 0.2 per cent of the total amount overpaid by the DWP.
Just 75 overpayment debts stemming from official errors were waived by the DWP last yearUniversal credit claimant Mark Whittaker, 64, from Warrington, Cheshire, said the DWP overpaid him more than £1,600 after it failed to register his pension and savings, meaning he received more universal credit than he was eligible for.
Mr Whittaker acts as a carer for his wife, Cheryl, 63, who has terminal metastatic breast cancer. He received a notification from the DWP informing him that his monthly universal credit payments would be cut to repay his debt.
“There was no negotiation,” he said. “I kept complaining about the situation, saying we shouldn’t have to pay it back because it was maladministration in the DWP.
“To hold me accountable for it – to accuse me of claiming more than I was supposed to, was soul destroying.”
He added: “The money is one thing. The emotional cost, priceless”.
A spokesperson for the DWP said it will be introducing new measures to reduce overpayments, even though they account for just 0.3 per cent of its benefits expenditure.
“To further protect people, we have additional safeguards in place before any recovery action takes place,” they added.
While the figures seen by The i Paper were obtained by freedom of information laws, the DWP cast doubt on the data, saying its system for recording overpayments is “not considered to be robust enough” to provide a precise number of overpayments.
The department did not clarify whether that meant the actual figure was higher or lower than that originally provided
But Niamh Grahame, solicitor at Public Law Project, which filed the freedom of information request, said the organisation’s research shows that recovery of overpayments caused by DWP errors “carries a particular risk of harm and injustice”.
‘Golden opportunity’ to prevent people falling into unfair debt
The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error, and Recovery) Bill, introduced into the Commons in January, will include measures to help prevent overpayments.
One example is the “eligibility verification measure”, which will require banks to share limited data on claimants who may be receiving an incorrect payment. This will not give DWP access to benefit claimants’ bank accounts.
Ms Grahame said the bill offers ministers “a golden opportunity to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from being pushed into unfair debt by the DWP’s own error”.
Mr Whittaker acts as a carer for his wife, Cheryl, who has cancer (Photo: supplied)The Public Law Project (PLP), along with over 30 civil society groups, have written an open letter to the Government urging it to apply a similar test to the one used to recover housing benefit overpayments in cases of universal credit overpayments caused by official errors.
“This would mean they could only be recovered where the claimant could reasonably have been expected to realise that they had been overpaid,” Ms Grahame explained.
The Government’s “fair repayment rate”, enforced last month, places a limit on the amount people in debt can have taken off their benefits to pay what they owe.
The maximum amount that can be deducted from universal credit standard allowance payments to repay debt was reduced to 15 per cent from 25 per cent as part of the reforms.
Jessica, a universal credit claimant from Dorset, said the DWP had failed to register her late husband’s war pension over several years.
This led to around £8,000 in overpayments, which the DWP would deduct from her weekly benefits payments.
“The stress level went through the roof,” she said. “My panic set in knowing they were going to take back £8,000 that I frankly didn’t have.”
With the assistance of PLP, Jessica was able to get her overpayment debt waived by the DWP, but said that the incident caused her “enormous amount of stress” in the interim.
Jessica, who has requested to remain anonymous, receives personal independence payments alongside universal credit because her left hand was impaired after a motorbike accident six years ago.
She also suffers from fibromyalgia, a chronic condition causing widespread pain, fatigue and sleep disturbances.
Read Next
square NEWS DispatchThe county that shows how benefits cuts and bills drove voters from Labour to Reform
Read MoreLuke Young, head of policy at Citizens Advice, said: “Too many people on universal credit are being penalised for government mistakes.
“Deductions are leaving people with less income than they need to make ends meet and pushing them into debt.
“The benefits system should be there to support people, not force them into hardship.”
Sumi Rabindrakumar, head of policy at the Trussell Trust, said its food banks “see how deductions from social security payments leave people unable to afford the essentials like food and bills”.
“According to research conducted by YouGov on behalf of Trussell last September, over half of people (53 per cent) facing deductions from their universal credit payments were experiencing hunger but didn’t have enough money for food.”
Proposing reforms to universal credit, Mr Young said writing off overpayment debts due to government error “would be a good place to start”.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Universal credit claimants left £490m in debt due to DWP overpayment errors )
Also on site :
- What to Know About Mohammad Sinwar, the Hamas Leader Targeted by Israel
- Justin Bieber's Unsettling Filtered Videos on 'Gucci,' Alaska & Faith Escalate Well-Being Concerns
- President Trump meets with Syrian leader in Saudi Arabia