Benefits cheats keep £150m
SUSPECTED benefits cheats are keeping £150million a year of taxpayers’ cash because the Government fails to fight their appeals against cuts in their handouts, it was alleged yesterday.
In more than three quarters of cases last year the Department for Work and Pensions failed to send officials to tribunal hearings where claimants challenged decisions to dock their payments.
In nearly half of cases, 42 per cent, claimants successfully argued against the DWP and local councils.
Typically, they saw their payments increase by at least £30 a week.
The number of cases to which the DWP sent officials in 2007-08 fell to just 23 per cent.
One tribunal judge said the DWP was “squandering’’ taxpayers cash by failing to send officials, ironically, in a bid to save money.
The revelations undermine the DWP’s boasts to be cracking down on benefit fraud.
The loss of public money will enrage voters who are struggling to make ends meet and who know they face tax rises to plug the massive hole in public finances.
Tory spokesman Theresa May said “chaos and confusion reign’’ in Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell’s department.
She said: “Some people could be cheating the system because this Government can’t even be bothered to have someone present at a benefit hearing.’’
The DWP recovered only £272million of overpayments in 2007-08 and wrote off £205million.
A spokesman for the DWP said the department always sent a written response to appeals explaining its decision with the evidence. It sent officials when the case was “complex’’.
The spokesman said total estimated overpayments of benefit due to fraud and error were at their lowest-ever level as a proportion of benefit spending and fraud was down by more than two thirds compared with 2001-02.
