The DWP is chasing thousands of pensioners to repay more than £100million in state pension overpayments caused by official errors.
DWP ‘actively seeking’ to seize cash from 220,000 state pensioners
State pensioners are being warned as retirees face being hit with eye-watering £100million repayment demands after a Department for Work and Pensions, or DWP, error.
The DWP is chasing thousands of pensioners to repay more than £100million in state pension overpayments caused by official errors. Data shows state pension overpayments surged by £89million in the past year alone, with more than 220,000 people estimated to be affected.
Despite it being the DWP‘s own error, only £3million of pensioner debt caused by government error was written off in the last financial year. Charities have accused the DWP of being “on shaky legal ground” for demanding money back from pensioners.
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The DWP is “actively seeking to recover the funds from more than 220,000 affected pensioners across the country”, according to GB News.
Charities told The i Paper that the department was “on shaky legal ground in demanding repayments of state pensions or benefits caused by its own incompetence”.
A DWP spokesman said the department was “determined to tackle fraud, error and debt” and that it was aiming to recover £1.5bn over the next five years.
Citizens Advice said many claimants receive little explanation, and that the DWP “provides very little information, especially in cases of historic overpayments”.
In June, Lord Davies of Brixton warned that “the constant scanning of accounts” would increase the risk of false positives, and “may incur further privacy intrusion – let alone penalties”.
The National Audit Office (NAO) estimates some 200,000 pensioners, most of them widows and women who were entitled to higher rates, are owed £1.5bn due to historic calculation errors.
A DWP spokesman said: “We are determined to tackle fraud, error and debt, and through our Fraud, Error and Recovery Bill, we are bringing forward the biggest crackdown in a generation.
“Thanks to our reforms, we will save the taxpayer £1.5bn over the next five years, as part of wider plans that will save £9.6bn by 2030.”