AN Okehampton town councillor is appealing for anyone who has been put into financial hardship following an overpayment of benefits to get in touch.

Cllr Tony Leech is arranging a meeting with the managers of West Devon Borough Council's benefits system to discuss issues of benefit overpayment, and how being asked to pay such money back can throw families and individuals into debt and financial hardship.

In order to discuss the issue fully, Cllr Leech, who is also a borough councillor, is looking for people in the area who have dealt with this problem first hand. All personal details will be kept confidential. Cllr Leech is just looking for real life cases to find out how the issue has affected local people.

He said: 'I have sympathy for the benefits department as they are fed information from a number of agencies, all of which can change details of those who are claiming the benefits, but there are some individual issues that they can make changes to to minimise the problems.

'If there are problems now, I believe that with all the proposed changes in the benefit system coming in from the present Government, it will only get worse for a lot of people.'

To get in touch with Cllr Leech, e-mail him on [email protected]">[email protected] or call 01837 53079.

The welfare benefits system uses retrospective, old information for its calculations. When changes to important information occur, the benefit system is often not notified for a substantial period of time, which can lead to overpayment.