Press Association
Monday 15th March 2010
Benefits overpayments resulting from civil service mistakes have doubled in the past decade, according to a report by MPs.
"Official error" was responsible for £800 million being paid out wrongly in 2008/9 - up from £400 million in 2000/1.
The Work and Pensions Select Committee said the figure was "far too high".
It criticised the Department of Work and Pensions' attitude to scrutiny of the figures and called on it to explain why there had been an increase. Underpayments due to official error have also gone up, from £400 million in 2004/5 to £500 million in 2008/9.
The committee said the increases had been "masked" by overall statistics showing overpayments for "fraud and error" had fallen from 3.2% of benefits in 2000/1 to 2.2% last year.
The committee's chairman, Labour MP Terry Rooney, said: "Poor decision making not only costs the Department in wasted overpayments, and costs claimants in underpayments, but also generates more costs further down the line in reconsiderations and appeals.
"An increased focus on the quality of decision making to match the Department's successful focus on fraud could have a very significant effect in reducing the cost to the Tribunals Service of hearings on benefit appeals."
The committee also said it was "unacceptable" that the department's last publication on the benefits decision-making process had been in 2006 and only covered 2002/3. It cited a ministerial promise in 1998 to publish a report "annually or as near to each year as possible".
Judge Robert Martin, a former president of the benefit appeal tribunals process, told the committee his own annual reports had been effectively ignored by the Government. The committee restated a previous demand for the Government to set up a welfare commission to study the benefits system and come up with ideas for a "fair but simpler system".
Mr Rooney added: "We are particularly concerned that the Department doesn't appear to take scrutiny of the decision making and appeals system seriously enough. If it is to improve on its performance in respect of official error, it must listen and respond to criticism."
