The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has temporarily suspended collection of Direct Earnings Assessments from employers in response to the current Coronavirus (Covid 19) outbreak.
The legislation covering DEAs, part of the Social Security (Overpayment and Recovery) Regulations 2013 came into force on 8th April 2013. DWP Debt Management began to use DEAs from this date, as part of a revised process to recover money owed to DWP, following the initial trial under a pilot scheme.
The scheme aimed at collecting overpayments of state benefits such as tax credits will be suspended for up to three months in a bid to ease financial burdens on claimants during this period of uncertainty. According to the announcements posted on Gov.UK, employers will be able to suspend the payments with immediate effect and should ensure any repayments arrangements in place with banks are cancelled or suspend.
Resources in these departments have been redeployed to help meet the surge in demand for applications for payment of Universal Credits.
Additional measures cover the following:
- The recovery of Advances by deduction from Universal Credit payments will continue.
- Local Authorities will suspend referral of Housing Benefit overpayments.
- The transfer of Tax Credit debt from HMRC has already been suspended.
- We are stopping debt recovery activity as soon as possible. This includes all benefit-related overpayments, Social Fund loans and Tax Credit debts. Many activities will cease immediately but others may take longer to implement.
- For citizens who are not on benefits, we have directed private sector debt collection agencies to stop their activity for Debt Management customers.
- We are also suspending voluntary debt repayments and recovery by Direct Earnings Attachments.
