Councils write off £1.5m benefit they paid out by mistake
NORTH Wales councils wrote off more than £1.5 million of public money they paid out in error during the last three years.
Since 2012 the region’s local authorities have paid out over £16m wrongly in housing benefit due to claimants filling in forms wrongly, changes in circumstances and fraudulent claims.
But £1.5m of that cash was written off by the local authorities a decision which has been slated as “disappointing” by Plaid Cymru housing spokesperson Jocelyn Davies.
Ms Davies said: “The level of overpayments is significant and it is disap- pointing that local authorities have needed to write off millions of pounds.
“The level of overpayments suggests there may be a breakdown of communications between entitlement notification from the Department of Work and Pensions and local authorities.”
Flintshire County Council overpaid the most – wrongly paying out £3,696,600 of which £379,830 was written off.
Gwynedd Council wrote off the most (£428,606) after overpaying £1,748,740 in housing benefits between 2012-15.
Across all of the 22 local authorities in Wales more than £70m was wrongly paid in housing benefits with more than £6.6m of this total written off.
The figures were released after a Freedom of Information request was made by Plaid Cymru.
A spokesperson for Ceredigion Council, who overpaid £1,594,015 and wrote off £56,939, said there were 11 different reasons money was written off.
He said: “The main reason is due to persons being deceased, other reasons are, that persons have ‘gone away’ and ‘irrecov- erable’ and these tend to account for around two thirds of amounts written off.
“The remaining third is mainly due to eight other reasons with the main ones being local authority error, not cost effective (to try to recover the money), substantial debt and bankruptcy.”
A Conwy Council spokesperson said: “Money is only written-off once all efforts to recover have been exhausted.”