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Office of the Ombudsman yesterday criticized the Social Welfare Department (SWD), urging them to step up efforts to improve the mechanism for detecting errors.

The office found HK$21 million overpayment in disability allowance by SWD over the past five years, the Ombudsman Alice Tai said.

The overpayment in as many as 6,132 cases was detected following an investigation the report of which was released yesterday.

Responding to the Ombudsman's finding, the SWD said the Ombudsman had overstated the magnitude of the problem. However, the SWD welcomed its recommendations.

The Ombudsman investigation report released yesterday revealed that the number of overpayment represented 8.44 per cent of the total number of higher disability allowances cases.

The number of overpayment cases increased from 880 in 2001/02 to 1,384 in 2005/06, with the amount involved increasing from HK$3.6 million to HK$4.8 million during the same period.

The allowance, introduced since 1973, was aimed at relieving the burden of the disabled. The applicants should be dependent on others and should not live in subsidized hostels in order to avail the allowance.

In one of the special 71 cases studied by the Ombudsman, it was found that an applicant who died three months after handing the application, still received the allowances for 15 years from December 1990 to February 2006, involving HK$200,000 as the department staff did not verify the death registry provided by the Immigration Department.

In another case, the department discovered that an applicant living in special schools hostel still received the allowance.

The Ombudsman Office later found out that the overpayment was issued after a department investigation staff had been verbally informed by the school social worker that the applicant was not living in the hostel, even though the department had earlier discovered that the student was enrolled in the school in 1999. The case was not discovered until 2004 when the department examined the case again as the student's mother applied for comprehensive social security allowance.

Ombudsman Alice Tai said some department staff were lackadaisical when processing the applications.

"In some occasions, the department staff did not fully explain to the applicants on the criteria of the allowance. In other occasions, there could be error with the system. But I think human error is possible behind the problem," she said.

Tai also said the definition of subsidized hostel was unclear until in August when the department specified that applicants living in the special schools hostels operated by the Education and Manpower Bureau would not be qualified for the allowance.

She said the random check by the department once every two years, in which only 10 per cent of the applicants who were aged 70 or above would be selected, was insufficient to detect errors.

She also urged the department to consider the special circumstances of the 71 cases when claiming back the overpaid money, especially for those who had given accurate information during application.

An SWD spokesman said they had reached agreement on repayment schedule with the 71 cases.

The spokesman said the department had various cross-checking mechanisms, periodic case reviews and random checks to minimize chances of overpayment.

He, however, said the Ombudsman had overstated the magnitude of the problem by saying the number of overpayment cases represented 8.44 per cent of all applications accepted.

"There can be more than one overpayment incident in one case due to situations like frequent and repeated admissions to hospital," the spokesman admitted, adding the actual overpayment represented only 1.09 per cent of total allowance expenditure.

He said the applicants were supposed to provide the department with accurate information and make timely reports on changes to information provided.

Terming the SWD response as irresponsible, social welfare sector legislator Fernando Cheung said: "The department insists claiming back the money. But the overpayment is mainly due to the department's fault, and it is not because the disabled people want to defraud. The department is simply passing the responsibility to the disabled," he said.