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The cost of fraudulent Universal Credit (UC) claims in Northern Ireland almost doubled to £102m last year, a public spending watchdog has said.

The figure has emerged in the auditor general's annual audit of the Department for Communities accounts.

The department said a significant number of the fraudulent claims date to the start of the pandemic.

At that time certain conditions were eased to allow unprecedented numbers of people to get financial help.

In the previous year the cost of fraudulent UC claims was £51.8m.

The number of households on UC in Northern Ireland almost doubled between February and July 2020 when people lost jobs or had their income reduced as a result of pandemic restrictions.

UC is the main benefit for unemployed or lower paid working-age people and is claimed by about 130,000 people in Northern Ireland.

In 2021/22, expenditure on UC was £912m, accounting for nearly 13% of overall benefit expenditure.

The department's analysis of UC fraud cases shows that 28% of the cases concerned an initial claim made during the early days of the pandemic.

A significant proportion relate to self-employed income, which is more difficult to verify than taxed income through HMRC records.

Auditor general Kieran Donnelly said: "I note that the situation in Great Britain with respect to UC is similar to Northern Ireland in terms of increasing expenditure and estimated overpayment rates due to customer fraud.

"Nonetheless, I remain concerned that estimated overpayments due to fraud are so high here, given our relative size."

Mr Donnelly said the department told him it was taking "a number of initiatives" to address the issue.

Meanwhile, he said that as part of a UK-wide problem nearly 5,000 people in Northern Ireland were underpaid their state pension.

In August 2020 the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) found there was a significant issue and estimated it had underpaid 134,000 pensioners over £1bn, an average of £8,900 each.

DWP's review of all possibly affected cases is ongoing and so far 5,000 cases have been reviewed and £4.6m in arrears has been paid out to Northern Ireland claimants.