The DWP has made a string of serious administrative errors which have seen PIP claimants wrongly denied vital support or underpaid – and now thousands could be owed over £5,000
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) blunder could mean thousands of Personal Independence Payment claimants are due more than £5,000 each. A series of administrative errors has left many disabled people either without crucial support or underpaid, with mistakes dating back years.
Some claims were incorrectly dismissed from people lacking a National Insurance number, even though it’s not a requirement for PIP eligibility. Over the past year alone, the DWP has reviewed 455 such cases, paying out £500,000 in arrears, reports Birmingham Live.
Ayla Ozmen, policy director at anti-poverty charity Z2K, cautioned that benefits underpayment errors could inflict “significant financial hardship” on disabled people. “We are calling on the DWP to do everything it can to ensure that these errors are corrected as soon as possible,” Ozmen stated.
“We are calling on the DWP to do everything it can to ensure that these errors are corrected as soon as possible,” Ozmen said. Former Liberal Democrat DWP minister Sir Steve Webb has suggested that the review of social support-related PIP cases “could perhaps have been processed more promptly”.
He also remarked that addressing all benefits underpayment issues was “the right thing to do”. And Ozmen stressed the importance of ministers engaging with disabled people on reforms, stating it was “vital” to avoid “instead of making a bad system even worse”.
A DWP spokesperson assured that the department is “fully committed to identifying claimants that are owed money and providing the financial support to which they are entitled as quickly as possible”.
They said the views of disabled people would be central “at the heart of a ministerial review of PIP, to ensure the benefit is fit and fair for the future”.
