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

[MissLou0]

We lose hundreds of billions from tax avoidance compared to 1 billion on benefit fraud and nothing is done about it, because those are the Tory donors. Michelle Mone just stole £28 million from taxpayers for her PPE scam, she’s not in trouble, and she of course also hides her hundreds of millions offshore.

We lose a small amount from benefit fraud, and as a result everyone who claims any sort of benefit including disability benefits banks are going to be monitored.

The graph below doesn’t even scratch the surface of how much is lost to tax avoidance. For example Rupert Murdoch is worth £17 billion and he hasn’t paid tax in years, personal tax or on his businesses. And he’s ONE person. These people are not targeted yet the most desperate and vulnerable are.

This is completely ignored by the media as the majority of newspaper owners are hiding their money offshore.

I’m in a situation where I don’t need to claim any benefits but I have family who are disabled who have had to fight for even the tiniest amount to live on, and they are now having to deal with this invasion of privacy which will make not even 0.000001% of what cracking down on tax avoidance would.

I think this new proposal is more about means tested benefits (which PIP isn't), but I would not be too complacent. They will be coming for everyone eventually.

Thanks for that. My friend would have qualified for Care and Mobility if she’d applied earlier. She finished work before State Pension age due to her poor health. One of those people who has always worked, and unaware she’d have any entitlement, because she knew she wouldn’t get any means tested benefits. She got AA higher rate straight away.

My disability support group took part in the 2013 consultation on PIP, and along with many other disability charities, advised the government that all that was needed was a few changes to tighten up the rules for existing DLA system. We all warned that PIP would end up increasing the benefit bill because it was designed to save money rather than provide any meaningful support, and that independent tribunals were highly likely to take the same view. We were proved right.

The decision to reduce the mobility test from 50m to 20m was hugely criticised and in response the then minister for the disabled tried to claim that the change was as a result of suggestions made by the organisations taking part in the consultation. This was exposed as a lie and she was forced to apologise, but the die was cast and the change went ahead anyway, with the predicted disastrous results.

Interesting to note that the Tories made a promise not to alter the DLA system in their election manifesto - David Cameron went to great pains to explain that he knew how important the benefit was to disabled people, because he had claimed it for his son. After the election, the coalition government took less than three months to announce it would scrap DLA and introduce PIP - the speed with which the consultation was set up proved that that was the intention all along.

The decision to reduce the mobility test from 50m to 20m was hugely criticised and in response the then minister for the disabled tried to claim that the change was as a result of suggestions made by the organisations taking part in the consultation. This was exposed as a lie and she was forced to apologise, but the die was cast and the change went ahead anyway, with the predicted disastrous results.

I remember. Thanks for taking part in the 2013 consultation on PIP, although they completely ignored it all :(

There was something in the consultation document about gathering information on how benefit claimants are spending their money. Not hard to see how this could be used against disability benefit claimants, but at present these benefits can be spent however the claimant wishes so there would have to be legislation to change this. And the ‘spying’ would be via an AI programme monitoring bank accounts - not cameras in claimants’ homes. Although I’m not sure I’d put this past them if they thought they could get away with it !!

That would be an interesting change of legislation. It would be a very effective way (if you’re a government) of limiting people qualifying as well given at the moment for PIP you must need the help, but you don’t have to be getting it.

In my experience these consultations are only paying lip service - by the time they’re put in motion, the government has already decided what they’re going to do anyway, but they have to be seen to be asking advice. A lot of organisations put forward some excellent suggestions for assessing PIP eligibility - not one suggestion was adopted. Government also came in for a lot of criticism for suggesting that in the washing and bathing category, the standard of cleanliness required for the assessment didn’t need to be high, just ‘adequate for purpose’. Beggars belief.

Every single organisation questioned why incontinence - a major factor in a range of conditions - wasn’t properly assessed for. The answer came back that they couldn’t be expected to assess for everything !! As anyone with the condition will tell you, the associated costs can be huge. Yet the government deemed it adequate to assess for it via the amount of help needed by another person or any aids or adaptations needed. Utterly bewildering.

Agree @Rosscameasdoody

Thanks @Crispedia . I'm actually not sure whether it's my case manager, as refuse to give me a name! When I changed my bank account, because I couldn't present myself at the job centre, they actually wanted to come and see me - in my bedroom no less - to physically check my new details for security. I told them I was happy for a video call, otherwise they could get lost.

I got my son to write to them (he's just got his law degree) accusing them of harrassment. I've heard nothing for about 3 months, but tbh I don't expect it to last long.

Except that PIP is hugely more difficult to be awarded than AA.

@Rosscameasdoody I agree with you actually there are people who have been refused AA who do not understand this and answer more about their mobility issues than the care they need which is caused by their mobility problems, I actually advise on benefit FB pages and have helped people claim pension credit but the AA questions = blimey they seem to try and catch people out we were so lucky we had help from a housing manager neighbour who actually helps his clients claim this all the time other wise we would have been lost

Not sure if this article will interest anyone here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/21/disabled-people-work-from-home-laura-trott-benefits

What disturbs me is the rhetoric, "doing thier duty", etc. There is something deeply unpleasant about the attitude towards genuinely sick and disabled people, which makes me think that there is a rather 'diseased' mindset in government. It is as if we are being conditioned to remove all safety nets, which many of us may need in the future.
I do not claim any benefits, but am young enough and intelligent enough to know that anything could happen to any of us. We should not be taking this lightly.

But the rhetoric is the most disturbing element. The language that is becoming normalised regarding those who are unable to work.

I think this is what a lot of people don’t understand. The eligibility conditions for PIP are entirely different from AA and the benefit is much more difficult to access. PIP intentionally holds working age disabled people to an entirely different and much more harshly assessed standard.

If they're going to use PIP to determine whether someone is too ill to work, I bloody well hope they improve PIP assessments and decision making.

Across the welfare rights team I work in, the success rate for getting PIP at the initial application stage is around 50%. The success rate for our appeals is 100%.

It's currently taking over a year from application to appeal, so that's a whole year that someone who is pretty unwell will be expected to look for work, hassled to attend appointments at the job centre etc. Our clients all have mental health problems, many of them are suicide risks. A lot of them are rarely well enough to leave the house, save for attending MH appointments.

This could well tip a lot of them right over the edge.

Yet despite having all that information, we are still finding significant numbers of people being underpaid.

One of my colleagues has recently identified an underpayment that has been going on since 2012. The client's arrears payment will be iro £38k. After a year, they will lose their entitlement to means-tested benefits if they still have over £16k left.

How is that fair? They've suffered unnecessary hardship for 11 years, through no fault of their own, and will undoubtedly lose money in future as a result.

Just had a look at the full article. The language used by the minister is typical of Tory ministers since 2010. The narrative has always been that the most severely disabled people can work but choose not to.

Those who qualify for the support group/LCWRA have always beenjudged to be too vulnerable to be compelled to work or subject to sanctions, and have received extra financial support in recognition of that. But the Tories have always had this group in their sights with regard to introducing some form of compulsion to find work. Now it seems they’ve found the mechanism to do it by the miracle that is working from home.

The statement from the minister mentions that support will be provided for these people to find and retain suitable WFH jobs, but crucially there’s no mention of how these jobs are magically going to appear or how they’re going to persuade employers to take on what in many cases will be very sick and severely disabled employees.

My prediction for the announcement at the Autumn Statement is that the plans will be announced in very broad terms as supporting disabled people into work. It won’t be made clear that the target group are the sickest and most severely disabled. If the public knew the devil in the details they would be outraged, so best to keep it simple until the proposals become law and it’s a fait accompli. The sooner this government is voted out and safely consigned into long term opposition, the better.

The reality is that beyond the plan to dismantle the work capability assessment - the mechanism which delivers support to those too sick to work - nothing else has been properly thought through. Lots of rhetoric on stick and almost no mention of carrot. No detail as to how these WFH jobs are to be sourced or how they plan to get employers on board with recruiting very vulnerable people. Or indeed how they’re going to reduce the NHS waiting lists which mean that many of these people are awaiting treatment/surgery before they can even think about work. And the plan to stop access to free prescriptions if they don’t conform gives you an idea of the short sighted thinking involved.

Anyone who trusts that the welfare of disabled people is centre to these plans would do well to remember 2010 when the Tories rushed through plans to close sheltered workshops like Remploy, which provided meaningful employment to many severely disabled people - the reasoning was that sheltered workshops were old fashioned and there were better ways to support severely disabled people into open employment. They promised extra ‘tailored’ support to those who lost their jobs. It never materialised and as a result, many of those people are still unemployed - part of the support group/LCWRA and once again in the governments’ crosshairs.

Traditionally, government ministers have hinted at controversial plans /cuts in the run up to budget statements, to test the water, so to speak. Speculation and trepidation build and then the announcement reveals the plans to be significantly different from what was touted. I don’t think that will happen here. I think the government has forcing as many disabled people as possible back into work firmly in its’ sights. I agree with this poster in that the plans will be announced in broad terms with very little detail and sold as ‘support’ - the detail will be saved for when legislation is in place to implement the proposals and they’re too late to stop.

Further the idea to reduce/cut inheritance tax whilst feeding benefits is disgraceful.

freezing

And adding insult to injury, if they are under the savings threshold after a year, they will have to justify every penny spent in order to avoid being accused of deliberate deprivation of assets, and disqualified from benefit !!

Poor people don’t have the means to employ accountants to get around tax law. So it’s a double whammy and win win for the government.

It's very easy to say "tax the rich" or make tax avoidance illegal but it's more complicated then that.
Opening a businesses is extremely risky and requires huge investments. Majority of businesses fail and very few manage to achieve big profits. That's why taxation is usually favourable towards businesses otherwise investors will just take their money elsewhere and the government will lose revenue all together. And especially after brexit UK is already not the most attractive place for businesses.

Don't even get me started on tax avoidance because saying it should be illegal shows how uneducated you are about tax and law. There are certain situations which reduce someone's profit and it's only fair that they then pay less tax. Otherwise it would be unjust.

People on benefits already sign up the agreement about transparency. The only thing that is going to change is AI will make things more efficient and cheaper. I think payments should not stop suddenly as that can cause unnecessary stress to honest claimants and yes that should be part of the conversation. But benefits fraud is much bigger problem then is assumed and people cheating the system take money away from those who need it and from hardworking tax payers.

Oh and yes I have experience of being on benefits so I understand both sides of this discussion before I'm accused of being "privileged".

I wonder how many of you have your own proper company? I wonder how many of you have experience of paying your own taxes and stress of running an established business? I assume not many judging by the comments.

@pam290358 I worked for Remploy over 50 years ago, and was disappointed when first Labour closed around 30 factories in 2008, and then in 2012, the remaining 50+ were disposed of by the Tories. They were heavily subsidised, never profitable, but they, IMO, provided a safe working environment for people who might otherwise never have found work.

Would sheltered workshops still be acceptable places of employment in today’s society? I’m unsure.

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/end-of-an-era-at-remploy-as-final-three-factories-are-sold/#:~:text=By%20the%20late%201980s%20there,would%20be%20sold%20or%20closed.

Well. I'm not sure if im not searching correctly but I cannot find a damn thing about this in the reports on the budget.
Did he confirm this plan or not?

We have a government who are not interested in being fair to disabled people. They have systematically reduced support and introduced more conditionality on people who are least equipped to deal with it. Now they are after the group which presently have the protection of not being compelled to work or to engage in job search because they have been deemed to be too sick or disabled. Benefit fraud in disability benefits is around 0.5% - very low. I accept that even that figure isn’t ideal. But what I don’t accept is that that is the fault of the genuinely sick and disabled, and what your post demonstrates is that you fail to grasp that it is those people who will pay the price.

I also accept that it must be very difficult running a business at the moment and that it must be hard to accept that some abuse the benefit system. But we’re not discussing the cheats here. We’re discussing the genuinely very sick and disabled people now in the governments’ crosshairs for reduction in support and increase in conditionality which will see them forced to look for work - and let’s be clear, this will be any work they can get, and not necessarily suitable for their condition. As a result many will become sicker through the stress of trying to hold down employment, and some will die. DWP policy has already been responsible for claimant deaths and the department steadfastly refuses to make public a recent report into that.

Your whole post demonstrates that you have, like most people with little or no experience of disability benefits, bought completely and unthinkingly into the government narrative that will allow these plans to go ahead unchallenged. Well done.