The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced its an annual report into benefits system fraud and errors will analyse cost of living payments made to millions of people last year. The DWP said its findings on the payments will be included in the report due to be published on May 11 as there is “public interest in these payments”.
As reported by the Daily Record, the pre-release guidance on GOV.UK clarified benefit reviews would not be made on the payments. “We have not conducted benefit reviews on Cost of Living Payments, so the estimate will be included within the unreviewed benefits section of the supplementary tables. Given the public interest in these payments, we will include a section within our main publication document that will provide information specifically relating to Cost of Living Payments.”
It continued: “If a claimant is not eligible to receive a qualifying benefit, then they would also not be eligible to receive a Cost of Living Payment. Therefore, to derive an estimate for the rate of fraud and error on these payments, we will use the rate of claims that lose entitlement on the qualifying benefits (the majority of which have been measured in the current or recent years).”
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