Blunders that meant £1m was paid in benefits to just TEN people

Published 28th Jan 2010

An astonishing £1million in benefits has been wrongly paid to just ten people.

Bungling officials sent out the money in income support payments to people who were not entitled to it.

The highest overpayment was a massive £136,567 to one person.

Over £1million in income support was paid by the Department of Work and Pensions to people who were not entitled to it

The Conservatives, who obtained the figures, said it was scandalous that mistakes by officials were costing the taxpayer almost as much as deliberate fraudsters.

Overpayments cost the Department for Work and Pensions about £800million a year, because it is often impossible to recover money from benefit claimants.

The latest figures, released after a parliamentary question, show that the top ten overpayments cost the DWP a grand total of £1,046,514.10.

The period over which they were made was not disclosed. The payments range from £136,567.94 to £95,531.98.

The department is 'pursuing' the cases, with some of the recipients being sued.

These figures only include cases in which claimants received more money than they should have as a result of mistakes by staff in benefit offices.

If fraud by claimants is included, the true toll is an enormous £3billion - amounting to 2.2 per cent of the total benefits bill.

This includes £1.1billion lost to deliberate fraud and £1.1billion lost to mistaken claims.

Tory work and pensions spokesman Andrew Selous said: 'These really are shocking figures. It is unforgivable that while taxpayers are tightening their belts, the Government is racking up more debt through poor administration.

'Ministers urgently need to get a grip and make sure claimants are paid the correct amount.'

Minister for pensions reform Helen Goodman said a task force was set up in October 2009 to tackle debtors who owe the department over £10,000.

'Since its inception, the task force has recovered an additional £ 1.2million between mid-October 2009 and early January 2010 from the high value debtors,' she said.

'Since 2005/06, the department has increased recoveries from £ 180million per year to over £280million.

'We try and stop overpayments occurring in the first place.

'The department's error reduction strategy will help to achieve this.

'It is based on preventing new errors from entering the system; ensuring that customers and staff comply with benefit rules and identifying and correcting existing errors.'

The Government hopes to reduce the percentage of benefit expenditure lost to fraud and overpayment from 2.2 per cent to 1.8 per cent by March next year.

Source: ' Daily Mail '

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