Benefit overpayments

Gurpreet made this Freedom of Information request to Department for Work and Pensions

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Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

Could you please disclose how many universal credit claimants have had payment deductions due to historic tax credit overpayments, with an annual break down going back as far as possible.
How much money has been deducted over the same period?
How much of this because of errors that weren’t /were the claimants fault?
What and when were the largest 10 overpayments you identified and attempted to recoup during that period?
How many letters have been sent to universal credit claimants relating to deductions due to historic tax credit overpayments over the same period?
How many debts have you passed onto to private collection agencies in each year?
What are the names of these companies?

if you are unable to provide all of the information, please provide what you can

Yours faithfully,

Gurpreet Kaur

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Dear Gurpreet Kaur,

I am writing in response to your request for information, received 28th
November.

Yours sincerely,

DWP Central FoI Team

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

Thank you for your reply. Could you please confirm how many of these debts are attributed to fraud or negligence on the part of the claimant?

If you have any other way of categorising the reason for the debts, please provide the breakdown

Yours faithfully,

Gurpreet kaur.

DWP freedom-of-information-requests, Department for Work and Pensions

This is an automated confirmation that your request for information has
been received by the DWP FOI mailbox.
 
If your email is a valid Freedom of Information request, as per Section 8
of the FOI Act 2000, you can normally expect a response within 20 working
days.
 
Please note that email FOI responses will be issued from
[1][email address]
 
We recommend that you add this address to your email contacts otherwise
the response may be treated as Spam or Junk mail.  
 
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contact us.
 
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gov.uk here - [2]http://www.gov.uk/dwp
 
 

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Dear Gurpreet Kaur,

I am writing in response to your request for information, received 4th
January.

Yours sincerely,

DWP Central FoI Team

J Roberts left an annotation ()

Some people might be interested in this:

Jonathan Ashworth: [182296]

'To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on how may people received benefit overpayments as a result of fraud in the last financial year for which data is available.'

Tom Pursglove:

'...On that basis, the department recorded 2,171 new overpayments identified as arising from fraud on its debt management system in 2022/23.'

https://questions-statements.parliament....