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1133849

	registered interest
	date	21/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458 on Universal Credit: Overpayments, how many overpayments were waived in (a) full and (b) part as a result of applications made by (i) claimants and (ii) their representatives in 2016-17.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	267720
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/06/2019 answer text <p>In 2016/17 there were less than 5 successful applications for the full waiving of a Universal Credit overpayment and less than 5 successful partial waiver applications for UC overpayments.</p><p>The Department has an obligation to ensure that public funds are administered responsibly and to abide by the principles set out in Her Majesty’s Treasury’s guidance on Managing Public Money (which can be found on gov.uk). Waivers are only granted in limited circumstances including where the recovery of an overpayment is causing substantial financial and/or medical hardship and clear supporting evidence of this is provided.</p><p>We are unable to provide a breakdown of how many applications were made by claimants or their representatives as this information is not stored.</p><p> </p><p><em>*The figures provided in this response have been sourced from internal management information and were not intended for public release. They should therefore not be compared to any other figures subsequently released by the Department. We are not able to report exact figures that are lower than 5, therefore this has been listed as “less than 5”.</em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 27/06/2019 14:34:56 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1132600

	registered interest
	date	17/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 17 June 2019 to Question 263062 on Universal Credit: Overpayments, if she will place in the Library an estimate of the costs of answering that Question.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	265448
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/06/2019 answer text <p>The Department for Work and Pensions follows guidance from Cabinet Office in setting the Disproportionate Cost Threshold. The current Disproportionate Cost Threshold across Government is set at £850.</p><p> </p><p>All waiver documents are stored clerically. We have estimated that reviewing the remaining waiver documents to ascertain how many related to Universal Credit overpayments would take around 51 hours of staff time and therefore would breach the cost limit of £850.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 20/06/2019 14:30:44 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1132601

	registered interest
	date	17/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458 on Universal Credit: Overpayments, how many overpayments were waived in (a) full and (b) part as a result of applications made by (i) claimants and (ii) their representatives in 2017-18.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	265449
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/06/2019 answer text <p>In 2017/18 there were fewer than 5 successful applications for the full waiving of a Universal Credit overpayment, and fewer than 5 successful partial waiver applications for UC overpayments.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has an obligation to ensure that public funds are administered responsibly and to abide by the principles set out in Her Majesty’s Treasury’s guidance on Managing Public Money (which can be found on gov.uk). Waivers are only granted in limited circumstances including where the recovery of an overpayment is causing substantial financial and/or medical hardship and clear supporting evidence of this is provided.</p><p> </p><p>We are unable to provide a breakdown of how many applications were made by claimants or their representatives as this information is not stored.</p><p> </p><p><em>*The figures provided in this response have been sourced from internal management information and were not intended for public release. They should therefore not be compared to any other figures subsequently released by the Department. We are not able to report exact figures that are lower than 5, therefore this have been listed as “fewer than 5”.</em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 20/06/2019 15:01:13 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1132050

	registered interest
	date	13/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458, how many (a) successful and (b) unsuccessful applications there have been for a reduction in repayment rates for benefits overpayment in each year since 2013.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	264327
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/06/2019 answer text <p>The information requested is not available.</p><p> </p><p>Our systems do not hold data on the recovery rates that were applied to debts that have either been fully repaid, or have been written off. It is therefore not possible to give a complete figure for the total number of successful, or unsuccessful applications for a reduction in an overpayment recovery rate.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 18/06/2019 15:00:09 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1131319

	registered interest
	date	11/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458 on Universal Credit: Overpayments, how many overpayments have been waived (a) in full and (b) in part as a result of applications made by claimants or their representatives since 2013.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	263062
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/06/2019 answer text <p>As all waiver applications are stored clerically, providing this information would require reviewing all successful applications made since 2013 to determine how many were made in relation to Universal Credit overpayments. We estimate that this would incur disproportionate costs.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/06/2019 15:13:46 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1131360

	registered interest
	date	11/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458, if she will publish for each of the estimated 30 applications made by claimants or their representatives to have their overpayments waived either in full or in part (a) the reason for the request, (b) whether the application was made by the claimant or the representative and (c) the relationship of the claimant to the representative.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	263064
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/06/2019 answer text <p>The table below details the reasons that applications for the waiving of Universal Credit overpayments were made by claimants or their representatives. The figures in this table have been rounded to the nearest 10. Where the volume of cases is less than 5, we are unable to report the exact number to avoid possible disclosure of individual details.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Reason for Waiver application</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Volume of applications (includes both successful and unsuccessful)</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Medical Grounds</p></td><td><p>20</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Financial Grounds</p></td><td><p>0 to less than 5</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Medical and Financial Grounds</p></td><td><p>0 to less than 5</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Official Error</p></td><td><p>0 to less than 5</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Medical Grounds and Official Error</p></td><td><p>0 to less than 5</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>DWP may waive recovery of overpayments where it can be demonstrated that recovery would cause substantial hardship and there is strong evidence available that the recovery of an overpayment would be detrimental to the health and/or welfare of the debtor or their family. Official error in itself is not cause for an overpayment to be waived.</p><p> </p><p>It is not possible to provide details of whether an application was made by a claimant or their representative as this information is not stored.</p><p> </p><p><em>*The data provided in this response has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar figures subsequently released by the Department. </em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 18/06/2019 15:19:00 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma previous answer version 123346 answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1131364

	registered interest
	date	11/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit overpayments her Department has made in the Vale of Clwyd in each of the last five years, and what the cause for overpayment was in each such case.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Clwyd
	tabling member printed	Chris Ruane
	uin	263066
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/06/2019 answer text <p>The specific breakdown requested is not available. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has no business need for a breakdown of this type and therefore our systems do not have this functionality.</p><p> </p><p>DWP is committed to preventing overpayments from occurring.</p><p> </p><p>The Department ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants who have deductions from their benefit to repay overpayments. There are maximum rates of deduction that are set out in legislation, and if a claimant is struggling they can contact the Department’s Debt Management Team to discuss lowering their repayment rate.</p><p> </p><p>DWP is constantly improving its data and analytical tools to detect and prevent issues as early as possible. DWP works to ensure claimants are aware of their obligation to report any changes in their circumstances. We are constantly reviewing our approach to make sure it is as effective as possible.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 18/06/2019 15:42:47 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma previous answer version 123348 answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	534 label Biography information for Chris Ruane

1130153

	registered interest
	date	05/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458 on universal credit: overpayments, what the (a) cause and (b) reasons were for the overpayments made to the 16,260 people who submitted successful applications for a reduction in their repayment rate.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	260552
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2019 answer text <p>Pursuant to the answer to Question 257458, of the 16,260 Universal Credit (UC) claimants who had a UC overpayment, who were successful in having their UC overpayment repayment rate reduced in 2018/19, there were approximately 18,450 individual overpayments as a claimant can have more than 1 UC overpayment.</p><p> </p><p>To answer part (a), the table below provides the classification of those overpayments:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Debt Count</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Debt Classification</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>60</p></td><td><p>Fraud</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2,620</p></td><td><p>Claimant Error</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>30</p></td><td><p>No Description</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>15,740</p></td><td><p>Official Error</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>18,450</strong></p></td><td><p> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>To answer part (b), the table below provides general overpayment reasons:</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Debt Count</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Overpayment Reason</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>9,910</p></td><td><p>UC-Other Benefit Not Taken Into account</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2,770</p></td><td><p>UC-Undeclared Earnings not reported via Real Time Information or Late Self Reporting of Earnings</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>1,840</p></td><td><p>UC-Housing Costs Not Taken Into Account Correctly/ Incorrectly Declared</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>1,130</p></td><td><p>No Description</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>760</p></td><td><p>UC-Not Entitled</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>740</p></td><td><p>UC-Other Income Not Taken Into Account</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>400</p></td><td><p>UC-Ceased Caring or Undeclared Carers Allowance</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>380</p></td><td><p>UC-Non Dependents Not Declared in Household</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>250</p></td><td><p>UC-Duplicate Payments</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>90</p></td><td><p>UC-Childcare Costs Claimed When Not entitled to All / Some</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>90</p></td><td><p>UC-Overpaid Health Premium</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>60</p></td><td><p>UC-Undeclared/incorrect Savings over Allowable Limit</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>30</p></td><td><p>UC- Living Together Not Taken Into Account</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>less than 10</p></td><td><p>Attendance Allowance/Disability Living Allowance – Severe Disability Premium Withdrawn</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>less than 10</p></td><td><p>UC-Undeclared Death Of Partner / Dependant</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>18,450 (Will not sum due to rounding)</strong></p></td><td><p> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><em>*All figures in this response have been sourced from internal management information and were not intended for public release. They should therefore not be compared to any similar figures subsequently released by the Department. All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.</em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 10/06/2019 15:41:57 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1130165

	registered interest
	date	05/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2019 to Question 257458 on universal credit: overpayments, how her Department defines substantial financial and/or medical hardship.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	260553
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2019 answer text <p>The Department does not apply a strict definition as to what constitutes ‘substantial and/or medical hardship’ as these decisions are based on a claimant’s circumstances and the supporting evidence provided. Where an application for waiver is received it will be considered on its own merits, according to the principles set out in Her Majesty’s Treasury’s guidance on Managing Public Money.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 10/06/2019 15:08:49 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1128236

	registered interest
	date	22/05/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many cases involving universal credit overpayments have not been pursued on the grounds of hardship.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	257457
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 05/06/2019 answer text <p>In 2018/19, 16,260 successful applications for a reduction in their repayment rate were made by claimants or their representatives.</p><p>In 2018/19, 10 overpayments were waived, either in full or in part, as a result of applications made by claimants or their representatives. In the same period, 20 applications were unsuccessful.</p><p>The Department has an obligation to ensure that public funds are administered responsibly and to abide by the principles set out in Her Majesty’s Treasury’s guidance on Managing Public Money (which can be found on gov.uk). Waivers are only granted in limited circumstances including where the recovery of an overpayment is causing substantial financial and/or medical hardship and clear supporting evidence of this is provided.</p><p>Rather than waiving benefit overpayments, the Department works to support claimants through the recovery of these overpayments.</p><p>If a claimant is having difficulty repaying a benefit overpayment, they can request a review of the amount that is being taken. Any adjustment to the rate of repayment will be based on the individual circumstances of the claimant.</p><p><em>*All figures in this response have been sourced from internal management information and were not intended for public release. They should therefore not be compared to any similar figures subsequently released by the Department. All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.</em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma grouped question UIN 257458 question first answered 05/06/2019 14:34:51 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead