Earlier this year, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) identified 22,500 Housing Benefit claimants affected by the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) underpayment and Incapacity Benefit (IB) reassessment corrective exercise. Local authorities began checking if arrears were due for those claimants between 2011 and 2019.
In August, the DWP said that since the initial exercise was completed in March, further cases had been identified that have subsequently had their Income Related ESA award reassessed. However, earlier this week, Welsh MP Ben Lake, asked whether the DWP has now contacted every person eligible for compensation.
DWP Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Claire Coutinho MP, responded: “As part of the IB to ESA reassessment LEAP exercise the Department reviewed around 600,000 cases and made 118,000 arrears payments amounting to over £600m.”
