A disability rights charity has said the government’s crackdown on benefits is a “scandal in waiting” similar to the Post Office Horizon IT system debacle.
This week, the government updated its welfare system “fraud plan” with a £70m funding announcement for “advanced data analytics and new data sources to prevent fraud”.
This will be used in conjunction with the Digital Information and Data Protection Act, which aims to give the government “better access to vital data held by third parties such as banks” to detect fraud.
In addition to privacy concerns, Disability Rights UK warned that an “irresponsible digital system” is likely to result in claimants’ bank accounts being incorrectly flagged, meaning they could temporarily lose access to vital benefit payments.
O The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) already uses machine learning – since 2021/22 – “to flag potentially fraudulent Universal Credit claims”. The National Audit Office said this creates “the inherent risk that algorithms will be biased in selecting claims for review from certain vulnerable people or groups with protected characteristics.”
Disability Rights UK has now said that extending fraud detection to bank accounts could lead to a situation comparable to the Post Office scandal, where Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system made it appear that its branches were missing money. This led to 700 subpostmasters being wrongfully prosecuted and criminally convicted between 1999 and 2015.
The DWP, which claims to have saved £1.3 billion by tackling benefits fraud and errors last year, dismissed this comparison as “completely misleading” and said staff will “always” make decisions relating to the suspension of benefits.
But Mikey Erhardt, policy officer at Disability Rights UK, told Yahoo News UK: “The reason it is similar to the Horizon scandal is the reliance on automation, digital systems, technology and unaccountable algorithms.
“Once someone is flagged in the system, it can take a long time to [a staff member] to monitor it.”
More than 20 million people claim benefits in the UK, including 3.3 million who claim Personal Independence Payment (PIP)which is aimed at people who need help with daily activities or mobility due to a long-term illness or disability.
Erhardt continued: “To scan 20 million bank accounts, which is roughly the scope and scope of that, and you have an error rate of, say, 1%, that’s 200,000 people’s accounts flagged to the Department for Work and Pensions. There is no team power to monitor this.
“There will be a lot of people’s accounts misflagged, which means it’s quite likely that your support will stop during this period until the team assesses whether or not it’s [correct].
“That’s why we’re so concerned about it, it’s an irresponsible digital system, like Horizon was. We don’t know how it’s developed, we don’t know anything about the system they’re using.
“What needs to be clear is that there is no way to make something like this safe… because there will always be mistakes… that can lead people into extremely stressful circumstances. The PIP process is already incredibly difficult to carry out.”
‘Scandal waiting’
O The MS Society said 65% of applicants report that the application process has a negative or very negative impact on their physical and mental health.
Erhardt added: “Trying to form a group of [claimants] smaller and smaller, using an irresponsible digital system to achieve this… it is a scandal to wait.
“The best we’re seeing are murmurs about protection and guidance, but I’m sure when Fujitsu was selling technology to the Post Office there were comments about how robust the system would be.
“But there’s no way to make digital surveillance like this safe.”
A DWP spokesperson responded: “This is a completely misleading comparison.
“Under these rules, a member of staff will always make any decision related to the suspension of benefits, and any signs of potential fraud or error will be comprehensively reviewed before action is taken.
“We have a duty to treat taxpayers’ money responsibly, which is why we are cracking down on fraud supported by our £900m anti-fraud plan, to strengthen our anti-fraud operations and root out those who steal from the most vulnerable. ”
‘DWP causes thousands of carers to accumulate debt’
A senior MP this week called for the DWP to “get a grip” on overpayments to carers, which have led to many unwittingly running up debt.
Work and Pensions Committee chairman Sir Stephen Timms said the government had “allowed” many unpaid carers to run up debt as it had known about the problem for years.
A DWP research report, written in 2021 but published only this week, said 3% of its sample of claimants received a carer’s allowance overpayment. With around 1.3 million people receiving the allowance, the Carers Trust said this could equate to tens of thousands of people being overpaid.
Timms said: “The government has known for years about the flaws that have plagued the carer allowance payments system, but has just allowed too many unpaid carers to unwittingly accumulate unmanageable levels of debt.
“The DWP must now act without delay to control the problem and ensure that carers are no longer subjected to the hardship that such undue payments can cause.”
