Universal credit claimants left £490m in debt due to DWP overpayment errors

A new bill will lead to mass state surveillance for the most vulnerable. We must act.

Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward. The UK government’s much publicised approach to dealing with social security benefit fraud is contained in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (PAFER). It has been passed by the House of Commons and is going through the House of Lords…

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New figures show benefit fraudsters have cost taxpayers over £6billion in the past year, a figure one government minister has called "staggering".The Department for Work and Pensions published figures showing that nearly £9.5bn worth of taxpayers' cash had been wrongly paid in the last financial year.According to Department for Work and Pensions figures, an estimated £1.2bn was underpaid during the same period.Fraudulent claims contributed £6.5b…

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Universal credit claimants left £490m in debt due to DWP overpayment errors

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 recipi…

DWP urged to change 'indefensible' rule that could leave carers in debt

The Department for Work and Pensions has been urged to change a rule that could leave carers in thousands of pounds worth of debt - and is currently the subject of an independent review