Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit official error overpayments were made in the last 12 months; and what proportion of those overpayments were not recovered as a result of a successful waiver request.

DWP’s Fraud and Error estimates indicate that 2.2% of UC cases were overpaid due to Official Error in 2020/21.

Clerical records show that we received 91 official error waiver requests in the 12 months up to January 2022.

I can confirm that where a person is unable to afford the rate of repayment, and they have requested a reduction in their repayment rate, almost all such requests are accepted.