(Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions):On 14 December 2017 my predecessor
provided a statement to the House on how the Department will be
undertaking work to correct underpayments that may have occurred as
a result of how a proportion of Incapacity Benefit claims were
transitioned to Employment and Support Allowance between 2011 and
2014. I wanted to take this opportunity to update the House on how
this work is progressing.
My Department will be reviewing close to 300,000 cases, of which
just under a quarter have been underpaid. We have begun
contacting individuals and making payments. We are actively
recruiting staff and have scaled up the team undertaking the work
from 10 to 50 in December last year, which will grow further to
400 from April, allowing us to deal with the situation at pace.
I know many Members will want to provide reassurance to their
constituents who think they may have been affected. I can assure
the House that my Department will be contacting all those
identified as potentially impacted. We have been engaging with
external organisations that often provide support and advice to
our claimants, so that they too can be confident that we have a
robust process in place, and can provide individual advice should
they be contacted.
Today I can confirm that, based on departmental analysis, we will
be prioritising any individuals whom we know from our systems to
be terminally ill. Thereafter we will work through the cases
identified as most likely to have been underpaid according to our
systems. We have also undertaken an Equality Analysis to support
this prioritisation approach.
Once an individual is contacted, and the relevant information
gathered, they can expect to receive appropriate payment within
12 weeks. I can also confirm that once contacted, individuals
will be provided with a dedicated free phone number on which they
can make contact with the Department.
Like my predecessor, I am committed to ensuring that all cases
are reviewed and paid by April 2019.
