The leader ‘Call in the debt collectors’ (December 19) questioned whether the Department of Social Security had the right processes to ensure that debtors pay their dues on time and went on to allude that “the department may claim it does not have the administrative and legal tools to enforce compliance”.
We would like to assure readers that, while fully committed to timely delivery of social benefits to legitimate claimants, the Department of Social Security and the Income Support and Compliance Division actively apply zero tolerance to benefit fraud.
Indeed, the drive to curb benefit fraud was stepped up in recent years through the creation of the Business Intelligence Unit in the Income Support and Compliance Division, itself newly formed, to nip abuse at an early stage through the comprehensive vetting and verification of applications for means tested benefits and pensions.
Since its launch in 2016, the unit has managed to prevent ineligible claimants from drawing benefits to the tune of €10 million.
A twin investigative entity, known as the Benefit Compliance Unit, formed a decade earlier, operates within the same division to detect and eliminate any ongoing benefit fraudulent activity. The unit’s staff employ various methods, including desk-based investigations, on-site inspections and financial analysis and may act on tip-offs of alleged breaches.
A person found to be in receipt of a benefit to which he or she is not entitled, or of an undeserved higher rate, becomes liable to reimburse the accruing benefit overpayment.
Besides misrepresentation by a beneficiary, an overpayment may occur through failure by a claimant to report changes in circumstances that may affect the benefit payment. Administrative mistakes may also occur.
The Social Security Act stipulates that when an on overpayment is the fault of a beneficiary, the repayment rate cannot be less than 10 per cent of future receivable benefits. But when an overpayment occurs through an administrative error the collection rate is capped at not more than five per cent of future receivable benefits.
The Department of Social Security or the Income Support and Compliance Division may also enter into ad hoc agreements for the gradual reimbursement of overpayments, especially in those cases where no benefits are due or in payment to a beneficiary.
These legal parameters, and the restraint that has to be consciously applied not to overburden defaulters who are socially vulnerable, inevitably constrain and prolong the collection of overpayments and, in the long run, create an overpayments bottleneck.
Notwithstanding, over the past four years, our in-house “debt collectors” in the Overpayments Section have intensified their efforts and managed to double the annual intake of recouped overpayments to around €5 million.
Over the decade ending 2021, a total of over €30.5 million in overpayments were collected and, in the same period, the gross accrued arrears of revenue grew by €10.67 million to €28.8 million.
This shows that, in these last 10 years, through various administrative measures which have been adopted, we managed to recoup €3 of every €4 overpaid.
But putting this into perspective, given that between 2012 and 2021 over €9.3 billion were paid out to pensioners and social beneficiaries, the accrued gross arrears of revenue over this period represent just 0.31 per cent of the global benefit expenditure.
This is also why, while remaining fully committed to timely delivery of social benefits to bona fide and eligible claimants, we can strongly claim that we decidedly possess the proper administrative and legal tools and we are successfully enforcing compliance and curbing benefit fraud.
Mark Musu’ is the permanent secretary at the Ministry for Social Policy and Children’s Rights and the Ministry for Social and Affordable Accommodation.