§ Mr. AllenTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the total of unemployment benefit underpaid for each of the last 10 years; and what he is doing to prevent a recurrence.
§ Mr. Eggar[holding answer 8 March 1990]: The Department does not record details of underpayments of unemployment benefit. However, the National Audit Office has estimated the level of underpayment of unemployment benefit for the 1987–88 and 1988–89 financial years from sample surveys.
Levels of £61 million (4–2 per cent. of outturn) and £55 million (5 per cent. outturn) were estimated for 1987–88 and 1988–89 respectively. In the majority of cases where unemployment benefit was wrongly withheld the claimants were properly paid income support instead and suffered little or no overall loss of benefit. Taking this into account the actual amount withheld for 1987–88 was 1.6 per cent of outturn and for 1988–89 0.9 per cent. of outturn.
A number of initiatives have already been introduced to address the problems of incorrect payments. These include a more detailed examination of all new claims, a review of a proportion of claims within a few weeks of the initial claim, and for restart and counselling interviews to be carried out at six-month intervals. The full programme of improvement measures depends on changes to the main benefit computer system and will be fully implemented by late 1990.