Universal Credit: Agency Workers

(asked on 5th March 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the accuracy of Real Time Information on claims by agency workers for Universal Credit.


Answered by
Alok Sharma Portrait
Alok Sharma
COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
This question was answered on 12th March 2018

Over 99% of individual employment records are now being reported in real time. This method of sharing information is allowing us to run a welfare system that is responsive to changes in earnings and helps us identify cases of fraud. Only a small proportion of the 1% of remaining cases are referred to HMRC to clarify those earnings with the employer.

DWP works closely with HMRC to investigate any risks associated with RTI data and jointly deals with disputes arising when claimants query their reported earnings. As DWP receives copies of the data submitted by employers, the risk of data corruption within HMRC is regarded as minimal. However, DWP and HMRC continually monitor the data and no significant problems have been identified.

A number of processes are in place to deal with inaccurate data from employers. DWP and HMRC analysts monitor the RTI data received, looking for trends, patterns and causes. Both Departments then work together with employers and partners, such as software developers and payroll bureaux, to improve the quality of the data. This work supplements the Bankers' Automated Clearing Services (BACS) payment validation process.

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