To think this “crackdown” on benefit fraud is absolutely pathetic

Abso-bloody-lutely OP. All these PPs saying that there should be more checks on benefit claimants to prevent fraud obviously have no idea what the impact of these additional checks have on the genuine, often extremely vulnerable people.

These people already have to jump through hoops and undergo humiliating assessments to claim the pittances they are entitled to without adding even more checks to the equation. The pressure and stress this puts on already very vulnerable people is almost unbearable.

Those saying 'if you're not committing fraud you have nothing to worry about' have obviously never had any dealings with the DWP. They will do anything to avoid paying out, including denying genuine claimants what they are legally entitled to and the more vulnerable you are the more they think they can get away with it.

My brother had serious physical and mental health problems all his life (thanks to a near fatal bout of meningitis when he was 8). He was housebound, had severe mobility issues and extremely poor mental health and was battling stage 3 bowel cancer yet in the last assessment he had approx 5 years ago he was deemed as being 'fit for work' (despite supporting letters from his GP and various hospital consultants saying otherwise). I appealed the decision on his behalf (as he was in no condition to) and went through the assessment criteria point by point providing evidence of his limitations. Surprise, surprise, a few weeks before we were to appear at the tribunal I was contacted to say they had reviewed the situation and were now awarding my brother the HIGHEST POSSIBLE AWARD. Just how do you go from being 'fit for work' to being in the highest possible award in just a matter of months?

As I said, my brother was in no state to contest the initial decision and was on the verge of suicide as there was no way he could hold down a job and that was his only source of income. Without me to advocate for him he would have been left with nothing. As it was, he died a year or so later so at least the Government didn't have to 'waste' too much money on him ay?

People really cannot underestimate the stress and anxiety all of these checks and assessments have on these vulnerable people, especially when they know the Government are just looking for any excuse not to pay out. Living in constant fear of being left destitute, on top of having to deal with your disability or illness is immoral and quite frankly disgusting.

Yes there are an (exceedingly small) number of people who take the piss but to demonise and persecute GENUINE claimants for this minority when you've got billionaires getting away with paying no tax whatsoever is quite frankly obscene.

Do you have a link to the Australian PIP thing? Not thinking you are making it up... am just interested (and horrified).

This government has a lot of links with right wing Aussie politicians and they draw a lot inspiration from their policies.

So not surprised that this is being presented.

@Ukrainebaby23 I feel sorry your husband has to work when he's ill.

The Australian equivalent of PIP prescribes how the benefit should be spent. The systems from different countries that the government is looking at to inform how they change our system in the future, includes the Australian model. How much legislation on changing the disability benefits system do you imagine has been pushed through without much opposition ? If you check, you’ll find it’s more than you think.

It’s not sinister, and I apologise if it makes people anxious, but it is happening - a lot of it was announced in the Kings Speech. Since the Tories took over, they have chipped away at disability benefits. This is just the latest raft of changes. If you look at the online newspapers like the Daily Mirror and the Daily Record in Scotland you’ll see the changes set out in various articles there, and the YouGov site carries a lot of information. There is also a disability advisory website called Benefits and Work - you need a subscription for detailed information but they carry a lot of information on proposed changes which is available to the general public.

👏👏👏

Benefit fraud figures are around £1bn a year and that includes DWP error too. £38bn is just ridiculuous.

I agree, but I think it's fair to say my DH isn't alone in working when he shouldn't be (due to ill health) because the benefits system isn't fit for purpose. Zero hours contracts etc.

My eldest DD has had mental health issues since her late teens, is classified as disabled and lives on benefits. She has to go for regular medicals and interviews even though her psychiatrist says she will never be in a position to work. Every time she has to pay for a doctor's letter saying what medications she takes and pay a return train fare of £30. She also has to go to the benefits office. Every trip costs her around £55 out of a fairly meagre benefit income and seems to happen every 3 months or so. People on benefits do not have this sort of money sitting in their bank accounts.

Rupert Murdoch is a very poor example to use. He is American (since 1985 -Australian before then), lives in New York, and has done for many years. He does not hold UK non-dom status as he has no reason to do so - his personal tax liability to the UK is absolutely zero. His companies are global and overwhelmingly North American and Australasian, with only 17% of revenue being European, although much of that 17% may be British (mainly News UK, Talk Radio/TV and HarperCollins UK). His UK companies pay UK tax according to UK law and there has never been any suggestion that they evade or avoid UK tax.

If you want a more relevant example, look to Viscount Rothermere (Jonathan Harmsworth) who is British, lives and works in Britain, owns the Daily Mail, i and Metro through offshore (mainly Bermudan) structures. He holds non-dom status which was inherited from his father, as was his seat in the House of Lords until the 1999 reforms reduced the number of hereditary peers.

I'd be interested in the answer to that too.

Thank you, this is a good idea.

You can get UC even if one is pension age as long as the other isn't. You are unlikely to get free dentist treatment though unless you earn very little as the threshold is lower on UC so you probably wouldn't have been entitled anyway.

Double standards and hypocrisy at its finest. I am waiting for a FOI request regarding how much this initiative is going to cost in comparison to the projected 'savings'. Government has lost sight (if it ever had sight) of exactly who is supposed to be serving who.

Well said.

Something like 60% of claimants get their original ruling overturned at tribunal which is a huge amount! This just goes to show how flawed the assessments are plus, as you rightly point out, all these tribunals are funded by the tax payer!

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/pip-appeal-numbers-up-by-almost-120

How does someone "earn" more benefits by not working? I don't work (unable to) and my sole income is UC, which is less than £800 per month. Someone on minimum wage would be taking home more than that, and probably having their wages topped up by UC too.

OK. I knew UC was only for those of working age, I didn’t know that tax credits were payable after state pension age.

How interesting, and thank you for the info you've put on here. I believe that Benefits & Work (the advice website) are trying to collect this sort of data, and do regular newsletters. I'll have a look later on.

(I used their website to assist with my own PIP claim, and it was invaluable. And I only used the free part.)

They’ve been doing this for a long time, but have never offered up individual numbers for DWP error.

This. Underpayment of benefit is also huge, but the campaign to encourage people to claim what they’re entitled to is half hearted to say the least. The British public are ultimately going to be responsible for pulling the rug out from under themselves if they don’t stop falling for government rhetoric on welfare and realise that it’s designed so that while we’re snooping on our neighbours and shopping people for ‘not looking disabled enough’ we’re leaving the super rich alone to enjoy their wealth. Yes, as with any other system there is fraud, and it needs to be dealt with, but not by making it harder for genuine claimants to get the support they need. Which is inevitably what happens.

If you want to be mad at the benefits system, be mad at the Tories for designing it with means tested thresholds set so low there are sometimes only pennies separating those who qualify and those who don’t. Or for wanting to single out working age disabled DLA claimants. That’s how we ended up with the PIP system, which judges disabled claimants much more harshly because they are of working age - despite the fact that disability benefits like PIP, DLA and AA are payable whether you’re in work or not. It was badly thought out, badly designed, introduced in a rush on Iain Duncan Smith’s disastrous watch as Secretary of State, and utilises an unfair points based system policed by ‘disability assessors’ with no specialist knowledge and minimal training.

Inevitably there are huge amounts of claimants wrongly assessed who have to go to expensive tribunals to get the benefits to which they are entitled, and the end result is a ballooning bill for the tax payer - which PIP was supposedly introduced to reduce. And guess who gets the blame - yep, you’ve guessed it, disabled people. Tory divide and rule at it’s finest, and judging by some of the comments on this particular thread, it’s alive and well on MN.

The figure is always given as ‘fraud and error’ which includes all DWP overpayments. No way of knowing which figure is higher.

I have to laugh at the posters who are so convinced that any money "saved" by stopping fraudsters will somehow be redistributed to the genuine claimants.

It won't. This is about bringing down the benefits bill, not about fairer distribution. Oh and getting votes.
Your taxes won't go down either fyi.