According to Birmingham Mail newspaper DWP staff will knock on doors of single benefits claimants.

[caringcarer]

DWP apparently lose well over a billion pounds a year by people claiming UC as a single person whilst living with a partner who should be claiming as a couple. Some people have claimed £100k they are not entitled to yet once taken to court get only very small amounts to repay each month £11 which would take a ridiculous 700 years to repay. Others have got a conditional discharge. AIBU to think anyone found making such a fraudulent claim for years before they are caught should be banned from claiming any benefits until every penny they fraudulently claimed has been repaid to DWP?

YABU to believe everything you read online

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/money/benefit-fraud-squads-knock-doors-30102456#comments-wrapper

The Birmingham Mail is, if I remember correctly, part of the Mirror Group whuch runs this stuff regularly to scare the shit out of people who don't take the mickey.

And posts like this are just as bad and buy into the tripe that all or the majority are scheming frauds.
🙄

I knew someone doing this, the partner had to jump out of a window one morning when (I guess DWP) knocked on the door early in the morning. Theoretically he lived with his mum down the road and she lived with their two kids. He was positively proud of himself for outwitting the benefit people.

If people are in receipt of benefits, then we're saying they don't have enough money to live off.

SO these people are due benefits but have claimed slightly more benefits than they were due.

How do you propose people pay back a debt, without the money they need to live off? And who is paying the costs of fruitlessly chasing people for money they will never have?

Now I get the 'they shouldn't have claimed fraudulently' and no they shouldn't but have you actually attempted to claim UC, it is by far the most complicated thing I have ever fucking done (and I am deeply regretting it so far as its brought me nothing but stress, which far outweighs the actual money!)...

There are many people who would fall into the fraudulent claim by genuinely misunderstanding, or by having a very 'grey' situation - for ex, a partner who stays with them sometimes, contributes zero financially to home or general outgoings, and lives elsewhere but isn't paying rent elsewhere as they are cocklodging with a parent (a situation many women find themselves in).

To the claimants mind, their partner does not live with them fulltime, doesn't contribute to the rent or bills, but to DWP's mind the partner isn't paying rent or bills elsewhere and is staying with the claimant a significant proportion of the time, so they'll assume claimant is lying and the partner is giving them cash.

The system does not allow for claimants who are stuck with partners who are arseholes.

You might catch and prevent a few who are actively and determinedly trying to scam the system.

But you would mostly be punishing people already in poverty, who have just fucked up or been screwed over by someone else, and ultimately it is going to be vulnerable people, mostly women, disabled people and children, who suffer.

If they read MN they won't be answering the door anyway.

Yet I read they save more with the people who don't actually claim what they're entitled to 🤷‍♀️

I’m sure I’ve read that the total amount of benefits that people could claim but don’t, because they don’t know they are eligible, aren’t able to deal with the paperwork, stress etc, far exceeds the amount claimed fraudulently.

I know someone this happened twenty odd years ago and he wasn’t actually being fraudulent. He lived as a lodger and the landlady was female, they were accused of being a couple. There’d been some undercover surveillance apparently (not sure for how long) and then a knock on the door and a man insisting on seeing the bedrooms to see if beds in two rooms were made up. They let him in as had nothing to hide.

though oddly enough two years later they were married! 🤷‍♀️😁

Omgosh... The media spreading negative stories about benefit claimants? No way.

Meanwhile, in the UK, an estimated £23 billion in benefits and support goes unclaimed each year.

How much work are they doing to right that?

£23 billion in benefits goes unclaimed each year.

policyinpractice.co.uk/missing-out-2024-23-billion-of-support-is-unclaimed-each-year/

Overpayments due to Fraud were 2.8% (£7.4bn) in FYE 2024,

Overpayments due to Claimant Error remained at 0.6% in FYE 2024 (£1.6bn),

Overpayments due to Official Error remained at 0.3% in FYE 2024 (£0.8bn),

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2023-to-2024-estimates

But benefits going unclaimed is not as froth making a subject!

You know how there is a housing crisis. Well, I'll tell you what I understand that there are quite a lot of empty flats etc. Sure, they have people on the name of tenancies with council etc but no one actually really lives there because they are living as a couple when not supposed to. So basically both get places dwp pays for both so lolls like single etc.
People knows this happens
Thing is it because of how universal credit is structured you get less as a couple a week tyen you do if two singles I think if they gave same amount of universal credit for 2 people this would stop the fraud.
Then they wouldn't be paying dwp for extra flat etc which means more goes back in system to help others

Your name always makes me smile wryly @caringcarer , given some of your posts about benefits.

Well if the Birmingham Mail says it is so then it must be true.

What would you rather, people (possibly with children) become homeless and starve to death if they’re banned from claiming benefits? Emergency housing and/or foster care, or a prison sentence, would be far, far more expensive.

But those two things aren't related, so why is it relevant?

I'd happily have an increased benefits bill if people who really needed it but couldn't apply for whatever reason were helped to do so. While also clamping down on whatever fraud there may actually be.

Well it's reasonable for DWP to take steps to make sure that people are only claiming the benefit they are entitled to. There are occasionally mumsnet threads from women who have "forgotten" to tell DWP that they live with a boyfriend now and that they are "worried" that they might get into trouble.

However
(a) YABVU to be so draconian in what the consequences are. If a family is only actually entitled to £70 per week and have fraudulently claimed £210 per week then yes obviously that is wrong, and if it has gone on for a year they owe £7,280 in repayments. However that £7,280 isn't sitting in a savings account. It has been spent on food and childrens shoes, on not having to use the foodbank and being able to afford something a little better than the cheapest nastiest options available. So when they are caught and are now only getting the £70 per week they are entitled to there is no money available to pay back from. Repayments may be set at £10 per week but that is £10 that means needing to use the foodbank more often, wearing shoes with holes in, and shivering in the cold instead of having any heating - payments of any more than £10 per week would mean their children literally starving. Even if they have been fraudulent, we don't want their children to starve to death, because we aren't that evil. The court sets the repayments at a level that won't cause unreasonably hardship and ill health. You cannot expect them to be higher.

(b) take a look at this image. Yes "over a billion pounds" seems like a lot of money. But that's the smallest dot on this infographic. The green circile of 16bn is the amount of benefits that go unclaimed that people are genuinely entitled to but don't manage to claim because the process for proving entitlement is deliberately difficult and complicated and some people panic so much at engaging with bureacracy that they would literally rather go hungry than deal with the administration required to get the help they are entitled to. It's difficult to estimate exactly how much tax is avoided, evaded and uncollected which should have come from richer people and companies that can afford it. The red circle represents the government's estimate, the blue circle represents the estimate of a couple of non-governmental groups who have less of a vested interest in under-estimating.

The total government spend per year is about 1,200 billion so the scale of benefit fraud is approximately 0.1% of government spending. If by making the process of getting benefits even more draconian we were to cut the rate of benefit fraud in half, the government would have 0.05% more to spend - barely perceptible. And I guarantee that this would be bought at the cost of children dying. It is not worth it.

If you are concerned about having more money in the system to help others, are you as concerned about the £23 bn which goes unclaimed?

Yes I am a labour supporter i dont like benefit bashing posts i am on benefits myself sickness and pip. But let's not kid ourselves i live in a council flat the upstairs of my mates flat was like this the dude who had the flat never lived there always at gf. Other flats to it's well known this happens but my solution is give couples the same as 2 singles then you wouldn't have to pay extra flat as most wouldn't bother

The relevance is that was the opening line of the OP, they lose over a billion, yet keep hold of more by those not getting what they're entitled to.

That was the basis of my comment.

I'd prefer they clamped down on government workers spending and expenses personally.

But bills don't automatically double when there's 2 of you

I understand but this is why people do this . I don't condone fraud at all I am just saying

Maybe they should be knocking on the doors of those who should be claiming !

Well obviously you're being unreasonable. Because what would they live on? The penalty for fraud is not to starve on the streets, is it? The repayment rates seem low because they represent the maximum a person can afford on benefits while still paying for essentials. There is no alternative here other than a (very costly) custodial sentence in prisons bursting at the seems, with children in (very costly) care. There is no sense in imposing penalties that cost the public purse more than the crime itself.

I agree with clamping down on fraud whether it’s benefits claimants or millionaires. All of it is a kick in the teeth for those of us who are knackered, holding down stressful jobs and raising families for little reward.

Yes tax is the big issue in this country, not benefit claimants pretending theyre single when they're not

Anyway, I wouldnt have thought they've got the staff resources to do this