DWP writing to banks demanding 'three months of statements' on benefits claimants
The move has been slammed by privacy campaigners and human rights experts.
The Department for Work and Pensions is handing new powers to banks to compel them to hand over information on benefits claimants. But the move has been slammed by privacy campaigners and human rights experts.
Labour Party MP and DWP boss Liz Kendall, the welfare secretary, has said the use of “direct deduction orders” allowing the recovery of funds from claimants could save the taxpayer £500m a year once fully rolled out.
Jasleen Chaggar, from civil liberties group Big Brother Watch told the Guardian: "Navigating the welfare system is a bureaucratic nightmare and innocent people can be left owing money to the DWP through oversight or error.
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"We should not be giving the government powers to go behind our backs and pilfer through our bank accounts, especially when the purpose is not just to tackle serious fraud but to correct accounting errors.
"The chilling powers to secretly request three months of bank statements from a welfare recipient's bank to decide whether they can afford to have the funds removed are paternalistic and nothing short of dystopian.
"Decisions about whether to seize funds directly from bank accounts should be made by courts, not unaccountable officials in Whitehall."
The DWP can already recover benefits debt through the welfare system, or by deducting money from claimants who are employees via the PAYE system.
The new powers have prompted warnings from organisations such as Citizens Advice that they will have the greatest effect on people in the most vulnerable circumstances.
Mass trawling of bank accounts is a huge imposition upon banks and will create many false positives and security risks to anyone with a bank account, with innocent people losing payments that are essential to buying food, medication, and paying for housing.
Estimated personal independence payment (PIP) fraud was just 0.2 percent of PIP spending in 2022-23. The £40 million lost to PIP fraud compares with an estimated £60 million in underpayments of PIP caused by DWP error in 2022-23.