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Benefit shambles costs taxpayer £51m a week in errors and fraud
Last updated at 08:52am on 14.12.07
Campaign: Benefit cheats are being warned
Cheating and bungling in the benefits system has cost the taxpayer £5.3billion in just two years.
Statistics published yesterday revealed nearly £51million a week was overpaid to social security claimants because of error and fraud.
The huge sum was wrongly shelled out to millions by blundering officials, mistakes by claimants or simply stolen by fraudsters.
Underpayments made in the same period total a further £2billion, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.
The figures make a mockery of Government pledges to crack down on the amount of money squandered because of fraud and error.
They do not include £5billion wrongly paid in child and family tax credits since 2003.
Critics warned it would be virtually impossible for the Government to claw back the missing £5.3billion - enough to pay for some 200,000 nurses.
The overpayments, representing about 2.2 per cent of benefit spending, cover a range of handouts - including Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance, Housing Benefit and Pension Credit.
The figures show £2.7billion was estimated to have been lost in 2006-2007, compared to £2.6billion the previous year.
Fraud has increased from £600million to £800million. Customer error accounts for £1billion, while official errors make up £900million.
A spokesman for the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "The benefits system is so complicated that not only are officials prone to make mistakes, but it is difficult to spot when morally bankrupt people pull a fast one."
Reader views (3)
I would never, ever again claim Tax Credit.
HMRC Tax Credits Office tried three times to take me to court for the recovery of an alleged overpayment amounting to some £1500 - money that I had never received in the first place but the HMRC didn't bother to check.
After writing many letters, and making a great many telephone calls I now have two letters of apology which admits mistakes were made "repeatedly."
Today I am a member of the Tax Credit Casualties - and internet based forum which advises people having problems with Tax Credits - and we are seeing on an almost daily basis more cases exactly the same as mine was.
Do HMRC never learn from their mistakes?
It would appear not, and that is inexcusable.
And who is the architect of this nightmare? Step forward "Flash" Gordon Clown -the only man on this planet who manages to make Mr.Bean look half competent - our unelected Prime Minister and Leader of a Government that can't be trusted to tell us the right time of day!
Apply for Tax Credits? ... I'd rather share my bathtub with a shark!
- Alan Willis, Newcastle upon Tyne
'Money with your name on it' tax credits have proved to be a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of honest, hardworking, compliant claimants, and we get blamed for Brown and the Revenue's complete incompetence in handling this overly complicated, official-error-prone system. Although never a benefit, it was shamelessly marketed as such, in a campaign costing £9 million. Elsewhere in the benefit system, if officials mess up, but the claimant was fully compliant and spent the money in good faith, it gets written off. Not so with vicious tax credits. The system operates on a 'guilty until proven innocent' system, with the onus on victims to not only prove they accepted 'money with their name on it' in good faith, but that they could not have possibly spotted all the multiple HMRC errors associated with their claim. Guess who acts as judge and jury in its own cause? Our Human Rights are dashed to pieces with a word from complacent Brown. I co-founded Tax Credit Casualties, and each day I hear more and more horror stories. Only yesterday I heard of one claimant only hearing from her neighbour that court action was being taken against her, as the threatening letters had all been sent next door! Is there no end to HMRC's criminal incompetence and to claimant persecution? If affected, google-search Tax Credit Casualties and join our 'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign.
- Ali Myers-Ward, Portsmouth, England
But how much is not claimed by genuine poeple put off by the complicated and awkward claims procedures, interviews, form filling and ignorance.
- Gary, Amersham
