§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) on what factors his Department calculates that approximately 16,000 people are affected by the ruling of Mr. Justice Woolf in 1984 concerning illegally deducted unemployment and supplementary benefits from claimants;
(2) what specific steps have been taken by his Department since July 1984 to attempt to trace the names of unemployment and supplementary benefit claimants found by Mr. Justice Woolf to have had their benefits illegally deducted by his Department.
§ Mr. NewtonI refer the hon. Member to my predecessor's reply to the hon. Member for Derby, South376W (Mrs. Beckett) on 30 March 1984 at columns 350–51 which described the method used for estimating the number of cases (17,000) which were believed to be due for a refund in 1982 but had not been paid. On the basis of that estimate it was assumed that during the 18 months, including the first half of 1983, when corrective action was taken, some 25,500 claimants were underpaid. Dormant files are normally destroyed after 18 months so that records would not have been available for earlier periods. At the time the estimates were made some 9,300 refunds had been made following a search through the live files arid a publicity exercise and it was estimated therefore that perhaps 16,000 cases were outstanding. All of the figures are necessarily rough estimates.
No special steps have been taken since July 1984 to identify the remaining cases but staff are under instructions to examine cases where repeat claims for benefit are made in dormant cases and to make refunds where appropriate. This has led to 420 refunds being made since 4 July 1984.
The deductions were not made illegally. Regulations require that a deduction be made if a question of voluntary unemployment arises, but for the amount withheld to be paid to the claimant if the question is decided in his favour. The underpayments in question arose from failure to make these payments at that second stage. Such deductions are made only in supplementary benefit cases.