To think thousands of people are getting shafted by the benefit system/ the government?

[NotLeanButMean]

I've had two pretty major cock ups this year, one with tax credits and one with housing benefit. I've been accused of not informing them of my new job (I did on my very first day), I've been told I am earning over double the amount I actually am (after sending multiple payslips), I've been told I stopped working over 16 hours a week for months (I didn't, I have worked in the same job, with the same hours for the past year). I also work for the NHS, so you would assume it would be even more simple to check the facts.

Anyway, in both cases, I've been told I could appeal but it would take up to 9 months. In both cases, due to the non payments, I've been faced with losing my (rented) home and had massive debts build up. I was so close to a breakdown on both occasions (diagnosed GAD). I can't really explain how this has affected me, my mental health and my grades.

I work 3 days a week, I go to university full time and I am a single parent to a toddler at 23. I wish I wasn't dependent on the benefit system, and so hope that when I graduate (next week!), I won't need to be anymore. I obviously didn't plan to be a single parent, I was a victim of abuse and made homeless whilst pregnant with no qualifications, and I feel I've done pretty well in the past couple of years to work to be a contributor to the 'pot' one day. But as it stands, my wages and my student loan are nowhere near enough to pay even my rent and nursery fees, let alone anything else. I know we are absolutely lucky to have a benefit system in our country, and I'm grateful for it. But if the government are going to allow wages to be so low and rent/ childcare to be so high, it's vital that it we have it, and it runs well, and I don't think that's an entitled view

Both times, I have solved these issues eventually by researching and writing carefully worded letters to chief execs/ my MP/ the ombudsman. It has taken a lot of research of governmental policy and procedure (and actually, a lot of info that isn't available online but I've received from the wonderful people on this forum). In both cases, it was eventually admitted that I had done everything right, and they were to blame. Yet, if I didn't do this research and know to involve these people, me and my daughter would be homeless.

In the least facetious way, I'm lucky enough to be relatively well educated (as in - not Eton, I went to shitty schools but I got into uni), and know a little bit about how to find out who to contact if you want to be listened to (mainly from Mumsnet).

I was speaking to my DM about it this morning (who has absolutely no knowledge of the benefit system), and she said that it makes you think how many people are being told they owe £8000 (which was what tax credits told me), with no idea how to fight it, or get anyone to listen, and are going broke paying a debt they don't owe. Nobody who works for these offices will tell you any other way except - wait 9 months without payment and we'll see. Nobody will tell you there's a special department for vulnerable people where it's likely you'll receive some form of payment to live on until then (found that out on Mumsnet, which saved our skin until it was sorted). Nobody will listen until you contact a higher being, but not many people would think to do this IMO.

AIBU to think it's absolutely shocking that it's likely that such a large proportion of society are being told by the government that they owe money that they don't, and they don't even know it? Or if they do know it, have no idea how to fight it? I know from MN, and from my peer group, that my case isn't isolated.

I'm so relieved today after receiving an email from the council this morning after a three month fight with no housing benefit and threatening letters through my door from them saying I owe £2000 - pretty much saying we're human and mistakes happen, you're right and we'll give you the £1500 on Monday that you've missed and your payments will be reinstated. I've been inconsolable with anxiety for weeks about missing my rent (due Monday!)

I feel like dancing, I'm over the moon but am thinking about all the people who don't have the fight in them, or the knowledge to do the same. And actually, if you've been lucky enough not to have dealt with the benefits system, you have no fucking idea how hard it is just to navigate these lies they tell.

Ironically one part of my job is completing hugely complex SDLT returns for massive companies. These are so much easier to complete, there is clear easy to read guidance and the help lines are answered swiftly ....

This is it. Even if it is the case that human error caused by underfunding is causing these problems, why aren't there simple guidelines to follow, with online based assessment such as the one on entitledto, that tell you what you're likely to get once you've inputted your figures? When I emailed the man back today asking how my benefits would change once i finish uni next week. stating the figures I got from entitledto, he said if that's what they said, it's right. So why the big rigamarole if an NFP can calculate your entitlement in seconds?

How can there be such massive errors made in cases like mine and PPs, where situations haven't changed but we apparently owe thousands which we're told to pay within weeks? Why is it only under the anonymity of a forum will HMRC workers private message me and tell me how to contact the department in charge of vulnerable people (which as a single parent with MH issues facing homelessness, I was)? Why are people not told this when I'm crying down the phone, begging them to just listen to the 2 minute phone call made on the 3rd July, which if listened to would solve all of it?

I despair.

Yes- it’s just rubbish.

All designed to make people’s life a misery.

Does anyone else think the whole 'you owe us x amount, pay it now and no, we can't tell you how or why you owe it' is deeply suspicious? Any other bill or debt I owed I'd expect to see an itemised statement showing where I'd underpaid (or been overpaid). There would be dates and actual accountability.

These random letters where you can't prove anything either way are just WRONG. You can't argue where you don't have any facts.

Does anyone else think the whole 'you owe us x amount, pay it now and no, we can't tell you how or why you owe it' is deeply suspicious? Any other bill or debt I owed I'd expect to see an itemised statement showing where I'd underpaid (or been overpaid). There would be dates and actual accountability.

Actually, I missed a part out of my OP due to my giddiness in being able to pay my rent. He said that an overpayment of 2k still stands, but due to the situation he wouldn't offset the underpayment of 1.5k which I'll get Monday. I was planning on emailing them next week (copying in the usual chief exec/ ombudsman who must be sick of the sight of me), asking for an itemised breakdown of this supposed overpayment.

I must admit, I've never got to this stage before. The disputes so far have been because theyve got a pretty fundamental fact wrong (I didn't inform them of something, I wasn't working, I was earning too much) that I could dispute relatively easily (when I could get somebody to bloody listen).

I assumed this would be more of the same. But given the comments of you and PPs, it's not going to be as simple is it? I'm not sure I've got any more in me TBH. Think if it's too difficult, and they won't provide me an itemised statement which provides more details than their usual gobbledegook (I often get random recalculations every month or so, both for the same time period, with over £200pw difference in income - when I question this, even the phone advisors have no clue, then I'm berated for missing some imaginary appeal period I didn't even know was in place).

I'll give it a go, but if they keep me fighting for months, as long as they keep paying me, I'll just pay them £20 a month. My mental health can't take any more.

And tbh, what I really don’t get is - if your sole income is from one PAYE job then why don’t the different departments of HMRC just fecking talk to each other!! It seems designed to make it as complex as possible when really it could be very straightforward, with most of the communication just done internally in HMRC!

Anyone renting off a large housing association with a name starting with S and ending in Y needs to read this....... Its written by an ex employee of theirs and explains the letters tenants have been getting.

"OneSanctuary SAP is the name of a multi-million pound software system brought in by Sanctuary in 2016, designed for use by all areas of the business. It has been an unmitigated failure, and is a huge drawback of working for this company.
The issues caused by SAP are staggering and difficult to keep track of. Because SHA tried to implement SAP in a cost effective manner, they ended up vastly under-investing in critical elements. There is no tailoring of the generically presented system ('vanilla SAP'), which is an issue as social housing is a unique environment from a service delivery and CRM perspective, whereas vanilla SAP is more geared towards providing a solution for manufacturing industries. Thus, the system uses corporate nonsensical buzzwords and methods of handling accounts which absolutely do not reflect industry practice.
Here are just some examples of the more specific issues faced by staff:
No rent statements have been issued since it was implemented in August 2016, and if a resident insists on a rent statement it has to be prepared manually in a spreadsheet.
The rent and calculations for accounts are hard to use, and often completely wrong. Mostly because the system was never designed to understand housing benefit payments, and this has a very convoluted workaround which a computer cannot make sense of.
SAP cannot interface with Local Authorities Housing benefit systems so payments are missed, lost or misattributed.
Direct debits do not work reliably, and for a long time following the implementation did not work at all. Front line staff are now preferring standing order.
The front end system of SAP requires far more testing and money spent on it. Each customer account is a total mess of information, with no discernible way to separate notes left between differing departments, with information left by staff often going into the wrong account entirely. This needs looking at as from a compliance (DPA) point of view the breaches are serious.
From a usability point of view, the view of a customers account within SAP CIC does not display appropriate information to the user (as stated before this is likely because the system was never designed to be used by a HA) and the user often has to go trawling around back end systems to find obviously relevant data (e.g tenancy start date, account balance, property type etc). This is a seemingly minor but considerable waste of resources"

Yes, it sucks. It seems designed to kick vulnerable people down when they are at their lowest.

NotLeanButMean You've done brilliantly to fight for so long and you've won a major victory
Pat yourself on the back for what you've achieved and try to relax, now that you can pay your rent.

and YADNBU: probably most people who need benefits wouldn't have had the strength and the information you have had, to fight mistakes by the benefits system.
I expect thousands indeed fall deeper into a spiral of debt and stress.

This system is not fit not purpose
It is cruel, either through indifference & remoteness of successive governments, or deliberate design to discourage claimants and wind down the Welfare State

Mine was private rental, not through HA, but I firmly believe that this stuff is what's going on behind the scenes everywhere. It's utter chaos, and I think sometimes they just alight on random 'repayments' to try to make up the shortfall.

IT SHOULD NOT BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO TELL YOU WHERE YOU'VE BEEN OVERPAID! That's sort of what computers are for...

You seem very well adjusted and you are erudite and calm in your manner. Ever thought of campaigning?

I could have written elements of all of these posts! Had housing benefit tribunal- purely because of their errors- PIP tribunal for my daughter after the assessor wrote a load of rubbish on her form and am due to support my friend in another PIP tribunal on Tuesday after she got a useless assessor as well. In all these cases, plus my Tax Credits appeal I've done heaps of research into the regulations, written long letters clearly explaining where the errors have occurred and written to my MP etc.

It's utterly ridiculous and quite honestly I don't understand how such a system can be allowed to stand. Like the other posters here, I'm educated and articulate. But my own experiences with the system have left me incapable of campaigning, as any time I think about them I feel sick and panicky. Also furious, which isn't a good basis for interactions with the people who could be sorting out this situation but are contributing to it instead.

Just posting this has brought me near to tears, but things still have to be said.

I recently had to do the PIP forms for my profoundly disabled brother. My friend is a senior SW in an adult disability team, so she is a professional expert, and I am an expert in this stuff by experience, and she helped me. These forms took us a total of EIGHT HOURS to complete, with 95 pages of cross-referenced supporting documents.

They still managed to find something to query and trip me up on.

So if two competent, and experienced people found the system almost impossible, how to vulnerable people manage it?

If, say, an online retailer messaged me saying that I owed them four thousand pounds, and they were going to suspend my account and withhold my goods until I paid the money, I would ask them to send me a full and detailed account of goods and services provided and monies paid, which I would cross reference with my bank account, prove payment or otherwise, and that would be that.

However, when it's benefit services, you are working in the dark. There's nothing you can use to prove your case. They just say 'yes but, you owe us the money and have to pay otherwise we'll stop giving you anything, ever' and you've no recourse, because you need the money.

I still think there should be access to your benefit 'account' online, so everything paid to you is obvious, and you can double check they have the details right. Also, for those who are vulnerable, they could allow outside agencies to hold these details, so they could have any adjustments made for them, before it became an issue.

Even the bloody supermarket I work for has our payslips and hours and rotas online so we can query any problems before they arise - it can't be too much for a GOVERNMENT to work out, surely?