Thousands of Brits owed up to £20,000 in benefits after massive government blunder
Despite the staggering blunder the Government will not pay all of this back until April 2019
AT LEAST 70,000 of the poorest people in Britain are owed as much as £20,000 after a staggering benefits blunder by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
Furious MPs have ripped into Ministers after it emerged Brits claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) had been underpaid by a total of up to £500 million since 2011.
Some may also have missed out on free prescriptions and seen their kids go without free school meals.
A withering report from the National Audit Office revealed a whopping £340 million in compensation will now be paid out to the claimants – who include severely disabled Brits.
But the Government will not pay all of this back until April 2019.
And it is refusing to pay an extra £150 million in compensation from before 2014 – due to “legal restrictions”.
Taxpayers will also have to pick up a £14 million bill as the DWP is forced to splash out to redeploy 400 staff and hire more to review hundreds of thousands of ESA cases.
Labour’s Meg Hillier, chair of cross-party Public Accounts Committee said the scale of the chaos revealed by the National Audit Office defied belief.
She told The Sun: “Some of the poorest people in the UK have been screwed by the Government. I’m very angry about this and will be demanding an explanation.”
The DWP was supposed to assess claimants for ESA on the basis of both their National Insurance contributions and any income.
Disability pay error
TENS of thousands of ill or disabled people were underpaid benefits by an average of around £5,000, a watchdog has found.
An estimated 70,000 claimants transferred to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) from other benefits since 2011 were underpaid, the National Audit Office said.
The Department of Works and Pensions said it will fix this error by April 2019, meaning it will pay up to £830million more in ESA than expected by 2022-23.
Commons public accounts committee chair Meg Hiller blasted the “shoddy administration” at the department.
But “in practice it did not always do this” and many missed out on income related payments, the NAO said.
Despite the Government being aware of the issue as long ago as 2013 it only recognised it had a “legal responsibility” to act in July 2017.
On average ESA claimants are owed £5,000 but some on a severe disability premium could be owed £11,500 each.
A “small number” could be owed around £20,000.
ESA is designed to help people unable to work because of an illness or disability.
NAO chief Amyas Morse said: “The facts of this case are that tens of thousands of people, most of whom have severely limiting disabilities and illnesses, have been underpaid by thousands of pounds each, while the Department for several years failed to get a grip on the problem.”
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Last night the DWP revealed it had so far reviewed 4,000 cases and found mistakes in 1,500 of them. A spokesman insisted compensation should be paid within 12 weeks of initial contact with a claimant.
She said: “We’re well underway with our plan to identify and repay people affected by this issue, and payments have already started.
“We’re committed to ensuring people get what they are entitled to receive as quickly as possible. Everyone who could be affected will be contacted directly by the department.”
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