Universal Credit: Overpayments
(asked on 5th June 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458 on universal credit: overpayments, what the (a) cause and (b) reasons were for the overpayments made to the 16,260 people who submitted successful applications for a reduction in their repayment rate.
Pursuant to the answer to Question 257458, of the 16,260 Universal Credit (UC) claimants who had a UC overpayment, who were successful in having their UC overpayment repayment rate reduced in 2018/19, there were approximately 18,450 individual overpayments as a claimant can have more than 1 UC overpayment.
To answer part (a), the table below provides the classification of those overpayments:
Debt Count | Debt Classification |
60 | Fraud |
2,620 | Claimant Error |
30 | No Description |
15,740 | Official Error |
18,450 |
|
To answer part (b), the table below provides general overpayment reasons:
Debt Count | Overpayment Reason |
9,910 | UC-Other Benefit Not Taken Into account |
2,770 | UC-Undeclared Earnings not reported via Real Time Information or Late Self Reporting of Earnings |
1,840 | UC-Housing Costs Not Taken Into Account Correctly/ Incorrectly Declared |
1,130 | No Description |
760 | UC-Not Entitled |
740 | UC-Other Income Not Taken Into Account |
400 | UC-Ceased Caring or Undeclared Carers Allowance |
380 | UC-Non Dependents Not Declared in Household |
250 | UC-Duplicate Payments |
90 | UC-Childcare Costs Claimed When Not entitled to All / Some |
90 | UC-Overpaid Health Premium |
60 | UC-Undeclared/incorrect Savings over Allowable Limit |
30 | UC- Living Together Not Taken Into Account |
less than 10 | Attendance Allowance/Disability Living Allowance – Severe Disability Premium Withdrawn |
less than 10 | UC-Undeclared Death Of Partner / Dependant |
18,450 (Will not sum due to rounding) |
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*All figures in this response have been sourced from internal management information and were not intended for public release. They should therefore not be compared to any similar figures subsequently released by the Department. All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.