The Telegraph found hundreds of millions of pounds in benefits have been given to people who have died.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) made a costly mistake when it paid out £850 million in benefits to people who had already died.
It is not clear which benefits were overpaid, but it is believed that the 2.6 million mistakes since 2021 could be linked to a mix of mental health and unemployment benefits, state pension payments, and other types of benefits.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Pat McFadden, is responsible for protecting public funds and getting back any extra payments that were made.
But less than half of the £850 million has been recovered, which adds millions to Britain’s growing benefits bill, which costs taxpayers about £300 billion a year.
Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has been accused of being too lenient on benefits many times because of pressure from backbench MPs.
Last year, he changed his mind about plans to make it harder to get personal independence payments (PIPs) even though there were worries about a rise in claims related to anxiety and ADHD.
He also dropped plans to limit winter fuel payments, which cost an extra £1.25 billion, and gave in to pressure to raise the two-child benefit cap, which costs an extra £3 billion a year.
The Telegraph reported on Saturday that the government plans to set up an online self-service benefits system for PIPs. An official trial of the system showed that the plans would lead to a lot more claims.
Torsten Bell, the pensions minister, is probably going to be embarrassed by the latest news about overpayments. He fired the head of National Savings and Investments (NS&I) because of a different “missing millions” scandal.
The Telegraph reported that NS&I has not paid £476 million to the families of up to 37,500 dead savers because of problems with its systems since 2008. The bank’s CEO, Dax Harkins, was fired because of the mess.
People are now asking Mr. Bell and Mr. McFadden about their own mistakes. Critics say that the benefits department has “lost its grip on basic administration” and wonder why they aren’t doing more to get back money that was paid out by mistake.
Official numbers show that £9.5 billion in benefits were overpaid in 2025. More than two-thirds of this was due to fraud, and 20% was due to mistakes made by claimants. The Telegraph’s numbers show for the first time how many official mistakes have been made about benefit claimants who have died.
Lee Anderson, Reform UK’s work and pensions spokesman, said, “This is an absolutely awful scandal that shows how badly the system has become.
“Almost a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money has gone to people who are no longer alive, and ministers have known about the problem for years but haven’t done anything about it. The public’s money has been shown time and time again that neither Labour nor the Conservatives can be trusted with it.
Shimeon Lee from the TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign group said, “These numbers show that the department has lost control of basic management.”
“Giving almost a billion pounds to dead claimants is a huge waste of taxpayers’ money.” The Government needs to make the welfare state easier to understand and make sure that everyone meets the same requirements so that there is a system that puts accuracy first.
DWP staff are thought to have made the overpayments for benefits after they got a notice of a claimant’s death too late to stop payments or at the time of payment.
People who are in the hospital or in care also get too much money. Some of these are the disability living allowance and PIP, which is a benefit for people with mental health problems.
Usually, these stop or are put on hold after the claimant has been in the hospital for 28 days. State pensions will continue, but means-tested benefits like jobseeker’s allowance or pension credit may be cut. If someone is released from the hospital, their benefits usually start up again.
The overpayment numbers don’t include winter fuel payments, but The Telegraph found that winter fuel payments have also been sent to the accounts of people who have died. Since April 2023, close to 83,000 dead people have gotten about £27 million in winter fuel payments.
People who get winter fuel payments have to wait until September to get their money. By the time they get their money at the beginning of winter, some of them have already died.
Some people think that in some cases, the cost of getting the money back could be more than the cost of the overpayments themselves, which usually add up to hundreds of pounds.
A DWP spokesperson said, “It is DWP policy to collect all debts when it is reasonable and cost-effective to do so.” We urge anyone who has recently lost a loved one to use our Tell Us Onc
