Documents obtained by Benefits and Work suggest that a large number of claimants are wrongly being paid both disability living allowance (DLA) and personal independence payment (PIP) at the same time.{jcomments on}
In a document entitled ‘Critical Process Points – PIP Top Must Do Actions’ DWP staff are warned that failure to follow instructions is leading to “high volumes of overpayments of PIP and DLA”.
The document states that:
“When processing all reassessment cases (including SRTI) you must wait for the task generated following receipt of the AP report before recording the decision. This task is purposely delayed by PIPCS whilst it starts a data extract process with DLACS.
“Failure to wait for this task or taking action to record the DLA other benefit information manually, is contributing to high volumes of overpayments of DLA and PIP. This is because the system has not had time to complete the data exchange process and both DLA and PIP can be in payment.”
Claimants who are told they have been overpaid benefits in this way should try to get help from a local advice agency or law centre.
