DWP issues update over 'reviewing' PIP claims after 28,000 people 'overpaid'

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has issued an update over Personal Independence Payment (PIP) "reviews". It comes following a question about fraudulent benefit claims from Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe in Parliament this week.

Mr Lowe reached out in Parliament, while in the Commons, to check "what the total number of staff employed to review Personal Independence Payment claims is; and how many fraudulent claims were made in each of the last five years".

In response, pensions minister Sir Stephen Timms revealed: " DWP currently has 2,700 FTE employed to review Personal Independence Payment Claims." The notes show the data is correct as of 04 November 2024 and data for PIP New Claims and Award Reviews staff has been derived from the Department’s Activity Based Model (ABM).

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ABM FTE (Full Time Equivalent) have been rounded to the nearest 100. The number of staff that are employed on PIP New Claims and Award Reviews activity is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal department use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics standard.

The data suggests that for the financial year ending April 2024, the fraud rate for PIP claims was 0.5 per cent due to claimant error, 0.3 per cent due to official error, and 0.8 per cent for overpayments. Mr Timms clarified that these fraud statistics "only provide an estimate" of the percentage of fraudulent cases, and the total number can be calculated by applying the percentage to the total number of PIP claims.

As per the latest estimates at the end of July 2024, there were 3.5 million PIP claimants. Therefore, using the above percentages, it would mean there were some 17,500 fraudulent claims due to claimant error, 10,500 due to official error, and 28,000 due to overpayments, the DWP data has also hinted.