UK NEWS

£73M BENEFITS PAID TO DEAD

James Purnell came under fire from Tories

Sunday March 8,2009

By Brendan Abbott

MINISTERS were accused of incompetence last night after it emerged that £73million in state benefits was paid out last year to dead people.

The benefits included disability allowances, winter fuel payments and even Christmas bonuses. Ministers admit that at least £27million of the money will never be recovered.

In thousands of other cases the Government has tried to claw back the cash from grieving relatives.

The Tories accused Work and  Pensions Secretary James Purnell of presiding over a culture of waste and claimed his department was not “fit for purpose”.

Shadow Work and Pensions  Secretary Theresa May said: “James Purnell is meant to be focusing on getting people back to work but he can’t even get his own house in order – what signal does this send out?

“It is absolutely ridiculous that thousands of people struggling on low incomes are missing out on the benefits they are entitled to whilst the Government is paying out millions of pounds each year to dead people.”

Pensions made up the bulk of the payments, with £13.2million paid out to 83,661 pensioners who had died.

Benefits minister Kitty Ussher  said the errors “normally” occurred because the department was not  notified of a death in time to halt  payments.

It now receives automatic electronic notification of all deaths from the Office of National Statistics.

She said the department had a duty to try to recover the money but added: “We seek to do this as sensitively as possible, taking into account the fact that this will be a stressful time.”