Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of universal credit claimants that have been (a) overpaid and (b) underpaid; what the value of the largest of each such payments was; and and what the total amount (i) overpaid and (ii) underpaid was in the last 12 months.

We do not have information on every Universal Credit claimant that has been overpaid or underpaid.

The Department’s latest Fraud and Error estimates can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2016-to-2017-estimates. The statistics are based on a sample of around 1,100 cases selected randomly from the UC caseload during 2016-17.

Of the overpayments identified within this sample, the median overpayment was £110 per month, with the smallest being £0.01 and the largest being £820. Of the underpayments identified in the sample, the median underpayment was £30 per month, with the smallest being £0.01 and the largest £600.

These statistics also show that £90m of Universal Credit expenditure was overpaid in 2016-17. The rate of overpayments due to fraud on Universal Credit is 3.2%, which accounted for approximately £50m of this total.

Total underpayments for Universal Credit in 2016-17 amounted to £20m. The rate of underpayments due to official error in Universal Credit is 0.9%, a decrease from 1.2% in 2015/16. The rate of underpayments on Universal Credit due to claimant error is 0.4%, an increase of 0.2% from 2015/16.

The Department’s preliminary Fraud and Error National Statistics for 2017-18 will be published on 17 May 2018.