Over £1.4bn lost to housing benefit fraud and errors

Almost 6 per cent of the government’s housing benefit paid out, or £1.4bn, was either done in error or was provided to fraudsters. This is an even higher amount than in previous years, and goes against Department for Work and Pensions claims that the slow and gradual roll out of Universal Credit will improve the system.

MPs that are part of the parliament’s spending watchdog have reported this latest news of overpayments, and the results show that many people in the government are doing very little, if anything, to address this. So the waste in the benefit system continues to increase unabated.

While the overpayments of £1.4bn or so are bad enough, there are some tenants that are even being underpaid. The watchdog agency says thousands of households are not receiving the benefits they are entitled too, so many people are therefore either facing an eviction or maybe even homelessness as a result of this.

The government is doing very little to tackle these over and underpayments. The study shows that civil servants are really looking the other way. This is occurring while DWP is forcing some people into a financial hardship, and others into homelessness, and the servants are not stopping this.

The solution for many of these errors in housing payments, whether from fraud or underpayments, was supposed to be the Universal Credit. However this is way behind schedule, and with the number of problems continuing to increase, the study shows that may not be the solution. The fraud in the system continues to increase from previous years, even in parts of the nation that are on the Universal Credit.

With over 5 million people on the housing benefit, £1.4bn could make a difference in many of their budgets. In fact, it is estimated that £340 million of payments went to fraud. If the money was properly paid out to people with a valid claim (and not to fruadsters), many people would not be in rent arrears. This could have made a major difference if properly paid. It could have even lowered homelessness across the UK.

Department for Work and Pensions claims they have been increasing cross checking of data and trying to reduce fraud, but the results of the study from the watchdog show that this is minimal at best. At the end of 2014 there were more reviews of claimant earnings, living situations and pension income. Many civil servants are not doing enough, and rather are blaming the errors on local authorities.

What DWP is doing is continuing to say that local authorities and councils have a statutory duty to both administer and properly pay housing benefits to those who need rent help. While this may be true, DWP ultimately is responsible for the money and any extra costs. They are after all the ones that issue the funds to the local councils, so it is in their interest to stop fraud and overpayments.