Record bill for extra benefits cash handed out by mistake

Profit claimants have been overpaid a staggering £three.3billion final 12 months as blunders by officers and fraud jumped by 10 per cent.

Errors included a whole bunch of tens of millions of kilos being wrongly handed to individuals who had moved overseas or received jobs after being unemployed.

Figures from the Division for Work and Pensions present that of all the cash given as hand-outs final 12 months, 1.9 per cent of it was paid in error. This was up from 1.eight per cent the 12 months earlier than.

Baroness Cathy Bakewell, the Lib Dem spokesman on work and pensions, mentioned this Authorities appear determined to seek out new methods to point out their incompetence

A complete of £three.3billion was paid to profit claimaints in 2015/16 that they need to by no means have obtained, in comparison with £3billion in 2014/5 – a rise of £300 million.

Though greater than £1billion was recovered, this nonetheless left taxpayers £2.2billion out of pocket.

Greater than £1.3billion of the wrongful funds was in housing profit, which is given to assist folks on low or no incomes to assist cowl their lease.

The primary cause for housing profit errors was claimants failing to declare their jobs and earnings appropriately, resulting in round half – £658million – of the inaccurate funds.

Some £450million was overpaid in employment and assist allowance (ESA), £330million in pension credit score, £100million in jobseeker's allowance and £19million in common credit score.

Zakaria Boufassil, left was discovered responsible of giving cash to Mohamed Abrini, proper, the Brussels and Paris assaults suspect nicknamed 'the person within the hat'

There was a greater than ten-fold improve within the quantity of ESA funds going to individuals who had moved overseas – from £3million to £38million.

An additional £70million in pension credit was paid in error to individuals who had left the nation, a rise from £55million within the earlier 12 months.

Final month, Kingston Crown Courtroom heard how Mohamed Abrini, the Brussels and Paris assaults suspect nicknamed 'the person within the hat', was given £three,000 that had been wrongly paid in housing profit to a person who had lengthy since left Birmingham to combat for Islamic State.

Zakaria Boufassil was discovered responsible and Mohammed Ali Ahmed pleaded responsible to withdrawing the cash from the checking account of Isis jihadi Anouar Haddouchi – a Belgian nationwide who had nonetheless been getting advantages regardless of having left the West Midlands for Syria – and handing it to Abrini in a Birmingham park in July 2015.

Abrini is accused of occurring the run after collaborating within the Paris assaults final November. He was allegedly captured on CCTV carrying a hat as he walked into Brussels airport with one of many suitcases crammed with explosives.

Baroness Cathy Bakewell, the Lib Dem spokesman on work and pensions, mentioned: 'This Authorities appear determined to seek out new methods to point out their incompetence.

'On their watch overpayments on advantages are rising, whereas failure to pay the complete quantity to those that want it's at a document excessive. In the end the individuals who endure most from this systemic failure are the real claimants who want assist essentially the most.

'We want harder penalties on those that abuse the system. However we additionally want motion in opposition to directors who're failing of their primary responsibility of care.'

A DWP spokesman mentioned: 'The truth is fraud and error in the advantages system is traditionally low, and at 1.9 per cent is decrease than in 2010. Claimant error and official error are at their lowest degree ever, and we're defending taxpayers' cash, recovering a document £1bn in overpaid advantages final 12 months.

'We've got introduced in reforms to enhance detection, prevention and restoration and our fraud investigators work tirelessly to convey criminals to justice - final 12 months we prosecuted round 5,000 fraudsters and issued round 6,000 administrative penalties.'