{"id":267965,"date":"2025-11-17T14:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T14:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/267965\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T14:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T14:51:07","slug":"dwp-confirms-it-wont-check-bank-accounts-of-people-who-receive-1-benefit-personal-finance-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/267965\/","title":{"rendered":"DWP confirms it won’t check bank accounts of people who receive 1 benefit | Personal Finance | Finance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department for Work and Pensions<\/a> (DWP) has confirmed that recipients of the State Pension<\/a> will be exempt from new bank-account checks introduced under forthcoming fraud legislation. The confirmation comes as the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill<\/a>, a flagship anti-fraud measure, nears royal assent.<\/p>\n

Under the new law, which begins implementation from April 2026 with a \u201ctest and learn\u201d phase, the DWP<\/a> will be empowered to issue Eligibility Verification Notices to banks. These notices instruct banks to verify whether accounts receiving certain means-tested benefits meet specific eligibility criteria, such as maximum savings thresholds.<\/p>\n

However, the DWP has made clear that it will not have full access to people\u2019s bank accounts under the new regime, Wales Online reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to its own factsheet, the department will receive only \u201climited information\u201d from banks and will not see transactional data, such as how a claimant spends their money.<\/p>\n

Moreover, state pension<\/a> payments are explicitly excluded from these powers, and banks cannot be asked to provide data on pensioner accounts.<\/p>\n

The Bill is also designed with several safeguards to protect individuals\u2019 data and rights.<\/p>\n

These include independent oversight, a statutory code of practice for banks, and a requirement that a human being must always be involved in any decisions that could affect someone\u2019s benefit entitlement.<\/p>\n

In addition to verification powers, the legislation also gives the DWP stronger tools to recover overpaid benefits.<\/p>\n

Where direct recovery is justified, the department will be able to make deductions from bank accounts, but only after efforts to agree a voluntary repayment plan have failed.<\/p>\n

Critics, including privacy campaigners and some MPs, have raised concerns about the potential scale of the checks.<\/p>\n

Former Tory minister David Davis tweeted: “The bank account spying powers in today’s Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill amount to a suspicionless surveillance tool impacting over 9 million innocent people’s bank accounts. The Government must think again.”<\/p>\n

Still, DWP ministers argue the reforms are necessary.<\/p>\n

The department points to the growing cost of fraud and error in the benefit system, with \u00a39.7 billion of overpayments recorded in 2023\u201324.<\/p>\n

They insist that the new measures strike a balance by improving fraud detection while protecting individuals\u2019 privacy and ensuring human oversight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that recipients of the State Pension will be exempt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,2215,4176,4174,4175,2221,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-267965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dwp","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-personal-finance","12":"tag-personalfinance","13":"tag-state-pension","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}