This item was originally published on this site
A London council says DWP staff do not grasp changes to Universal Guidance (UC) guidance – citing the example of whether they or council staff should pay housing support for homeless claimants.
Tower Hamlets Council says its staff have had to explain to DWP staff what their own rules and regulations were.
The ‘don’t know what you’re doing’ revelation is the second damning blow to hit the DWP today.
Earlier, 24housing reported providers and tenants being short-changed over UC because the DWP “can’t count how many days are in a year”.
The Tower Hamlets report references overpayments that the DWP took months to correct – leaving some claimants with huge repayment bills.
In one case, a claimant had to pay back £18,000 after the DWP ignored 10 months of the council’s emails referencing the relevant error.
Describing the current council-DWP liaison arrangements as “bizarre”, “not fit for purpose” and more inefficient than the previous system, the report’s findings echo difficulties reported by welfare rights advisors that new UC confidentiality rules meant they could no longer directly resolve errors on behalf of their clients unless they could prove a complicated series of client permissions.
Tower Hamlets Council spotted errors during routine checks on UC data while processing housing benefit and council tax reduction claims.
With only a single full-time staff member to monitor claim accuracy, the council believes it would uncover even more errors with more resources.
Identifying a reluctance among DWP staff to act on overpayment alerts, Tower Hamlets Council said the department would regularly take months to rectify issues raised despite repeated written reminders – and even when they were told people ineligible for benefits were claiming UC.
Overall, the Tower Hamlets benefits team said it had uncovered 539 DWP administrative mistakes in less than a year, which led to hundreds of claimants being underpaid by up to £8,000 or overpaid by up to £25,000.
Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs says the findings reinforce the reality of UC as “riddled with errors and systemic faults”, the reality of which can be life-changing for claimants.
The report reveals that in 2018-19, £194,000 of UC overpayments were made to Tower Hamlets residents by the DWP, with the average overpayment being £4,500.
Around £150,000 of underpayments were made at an average of £104.
The council currently has 197 UC queries logged with the DWP.
In most of the error cases identified, the DWP said corrections could not be made without personal notification from the individual claimant.
And the council found most claimants were unaware of the errors.
In another case, a payment made to the claimant who was living abroad was brought to the council’s attention by a social landlord who said he had been asked by DWP to provide proof of rent to speed up processing of the claim.
When the landlord raised concerns about the tenant’s eligibility, the DWP reportedly told the landlord it was not their job to assess UC eligibility and insisted that rent details were provided.
The claim was paid, and the landlord has started repossession proceedings on the property.
The DWP said it could not comment on the outcomes of individual issues for data protection reasons.
