Truly shocked by Tory bank trials for benefit claimants.

Yes this precisely.

The detail is deliberately hidden. To drive the anger.

I think either a labour or conservative govt. will crack down on this.

I am not sure what is in any way controversial to anyone about stopping the benefits (and prosecuting someone) who has 50k in the bank but continues to defraud the state.

Lol

So why isn’t labour promising to end that and use the resulting trillions to implement whatever we want and make society amazing?

Benefits claiments are a soft target. Meanwhile we are surrounded by money laundering, fraud and tax evasion that just goes on in plain sight. It would be marvellous if the government would look into those. Oh wait...

Read the bloody article if you want convenience, it specifically says low income benefits.

You got me - I’m a very wealthy Tory donor with many skeletons in the closet, taking to Mumsnet to blame a tiny number of defrauding benefit claimants and fight for my interests.

Either that or I’m a 32 year old mum of 2 on 27k a year, you decide

And how many of these are pensioners? Or on PIP which isn't means tested?
Oh, it doesn't say. How convenient

It's not even a high % as it stands and it's likely the % of this number that constitutes actual fraud is much lower. So even if these figures are accurate (debatable) I think "shocked" is an overreaction.

You won’t catch me arguing with that but every time the subject of benefits is brought up there’s so much Tory whataboutery, some people really are truly desperate to never put benefits under any kind of scrutiny, and call anyone a bigot who says maybe not EVERYONE claiming is sincere (as this article proves).

If benefits are being fraudulently claimed by some 8% of people, that’s £4 billion a year.

It’s not a negligible figure, its more than the private school VAT total, it’s more than ending non-dom status, and its more than the cost of ‘dodgy covid contracts’.

The aforementioned figures are regularly touted on here as worth being chased up, so why isn’t this?

Precisely. Free loaders should be allowed.

What have you got to hide, Faeryring?

Yeah that's because the OPs maybe work the rest of the week. You know, getting tax paid and all that.

Benefits should only be for people in a precarious situation.
Many who don't get benefits struggle to attain 16k in savings so why should they contribute to others so they can keep their 50k

I might be misunderstanding how these checks will work. If someone wants to claim despite having funds that would make them ineligible, wouldn’t they have a “two sets of books” situation ie a separate account at a different bank to use for benefit payments?

Is there a central database for every account everyone has with any bank or other financial services?

Unless DWP can check everywhere people might have money squirrelled away I think the fraudsters will soon adapt.

I’m not surprised at all.

We do get a benefit fraud thread like clockwork on Saturdays though, I'm sure it's not coincidence!

The tide has swung a long way on this, but I agree to some extent. The thresholds don't move with inflation either, which is self-evidently stupid.

The welfare system has become increasingly illogical resulting in higher costs and increased poverty.

For example home owners used to be able to claim mortgage support, now can only access a loan, which creates more problems down the track, resulting in more homes lost, resulting in higher costs for the state.

I'm not terribly shocked as it seems to me any system is open to fraud and noone has suggested there is no fraud. This amounts to 9% who may have breachedd rules. But some of it might not be a breach so it might be a little lower.

so we still have 91% claiming within the rules so we still should design a system that supports the vast majority of claimants and not punish them because of others.

I agree in principle. But you’re talking about two completely different approaches. Investigating high net worth individuals is going to be highly skilled labour intensive work.

Stopping this sort of widescale fraud would literally be a letter on day one of the legislation passing and half of them would remove themselves immediately.

But it’s necessary due to the current approach of paying interest gross of tax. Would you change that? The alternative would probably have to be 20% tax again and then a load of work for HMRC in dealing with individual requests for rebates.

You can see why so many people want to be paid in cash...

I agree with the poster you quoted.

What's good for the goose etc.

I think people should be able to have savings and claim benefits. You shouldn’t have to get yourself in a precarious situation financially before you claim benefits.
The amount you are ‘allowed’ to have and claim benefits is pitiable.

Stop trying to deflect

I'm no fan of automatic bank surveillance for anyone. But it is here and deemed allowable under HRA so let's not get sidetracked!