Section: Benefits & Grants
Fraud & Error in Housing Benefit
The Department for Work and Pensions published a new report, providing details on the types and
causes of fraud and error in Housing Benefit for the two year period April 2002 to March 2004.
The report gives a detailed analysis of the
levels of Housing Benefit fraud and error in Great Britain, broken down by:
- Claimant characteristics.
- Local authority
characteristics.
- Components of Housing Benefit assessments that were incorrect.
The report's findings
include:
- Fraud and error related to income from earnings is estimated to have accounted for about a fifth of all overpaid
expenditure.
- Around a quarter of overpaid expenditure is due to local authority, DWP, or process error. Around nine tenths of this was
caused by local authority mistakes or failure.
- New Tax Credits (NTCs) replaced previous tax credits in April 2003. In the year 2003/04,
fraud and error related to the existence or value of NTC income caused around a tenth of all overpaid Housing Benefit
expenditure.
- Non-residence is estimated to have accounted for around a quarter of all overpaid expenditure. Of this, around nine tenths
involved claimant fraud or error. Only around one tenth was due to local authority or process error.
- Claimants not in receipt of a
passporting benefit were around four times more likely to be overpaid Housing Benefit than those that were.
Ref: www.dwp.gov.uk
