Prosecution limit reduced from £4000 to £2000

Until very recently it used to be the case that as long as the amount of unlawfully received benefit was less then £4000 then prosecution in court could usually be avoided by paying an Administrative Penalty to the DWP.

However, we have learnt that a new policy on this has been adopted by the DWP and the limit has been reduced to £2000. This could mean that more claimants will be prosecuted by the courts but there is still ‘discretion’  allowed to investigating officers which could mean that if the correct representations are made in good time then prosecution may still be avoided.