Recommendation 32

The Department reports that it is able to identify claims impacted by its temporary easements to controls, and that therefore it can revisit these claims to raise any resulting over (or under) payments that might have occurred; it reports that it will be starting this work in 2020–21.66 The Department has a record of acting slowly to identify and correct underpayments. NAO’s Investigation into errors in Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in 2018 showed that the Department underpaid an estimated 70,000 claimants (at the time of reporting) who had transferred to ESA from other benefits; the error related to people who may have been entitled to income-related ESA but were instead only awarded contribution-based ESA, and therefore may have missed out on premium payments. Although the issue started in early 2011, it took until July 2017 for the Department to recognise that it had a legal responsibility to identify the people affected and develop a response.67 As at January 2020, the Department has had to repay £589 million to 112,000 claimants that had been underpaid as a result of this error.68