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<p>Deductions may include a number of items that are debt repayments, but may also
include other items such as payments to utility companies for current bills, or court
fines. These are not debts. Disaggregating categories that represent debt, from those
that do not, would incur a disproportionate cost.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>In
August 2018, 0.6% of Universal Credit claimants had a deduction that exceeded the
normal 40% maximum deduction rate (this does not include sanctions or fraud penalties
which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions). In these cases, a priority
order is applied so that deductions for arrears of housing costs or fuel costs are
applied first, in order to to protect claimant welfare.</p>
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