COMMENTING ON the Commons public accounts committee’s report on reducing errors in the benefits system, South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon, a member of the committee, said:
“The cost of mistakes by benefits officials and claimants is one of the most intractable and expensive problems in Whitehall. Last year, £2 billion in benefits were overpaid due to mistakes by officials and claimants. Not only are these losses roughly the same as the year before, but the cost of error in the benefits system has changed little over the last four years.
“This is hardly a new problem, so it is ridiculous that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) still does not truly understand how or why errors are made. The DWP also lacks a clear, decisive plan to achieve its joint target of a 25 per cent cut in the cost of overpayments by 2015, despite being given an extra £425 million for the purpose.
“The DWP needs to do two things: get a clear understanding of how and why errors enter the benefits system; and form a clear, decisive plan to slash the cost of overpayments by a quarter by 2015. It has been 22 years since the Department’s accounts last received a clean bill of health. The Department must do better as we simply cannot afford another year of the DWP’s inertia”.
10 March 2011
PAC REPORT: Reducing errors in the benefits system
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