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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

35 replies

caringcarer · 10/10/2024 16:51

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?

OP posts:
PuddlesPityParty · 10/10/2024 18:06

OrdsallChord · 10/10/2024 17:18

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

🤣🤣🤭

Freshersfluforyou · 10/10/2024 18:17

DustyAmuseAlien · 10/10/2024 17:50

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.

The point is that for some people, if they didn't have that extra money from dwp to pay for kids clothes, shoes etc, would then decide they need to work full-time rather than perhaps quite low hours.
Its true that lots are benefit claimants are working, but what often gets missed off that fact on here is that many who are working are vastly underemployed, eg mum and dad both each working 18hrs a week while DWP tops up.
Its what makes the UK unproductive.

PonyPatter44 · 10/10/2024 18:19

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AgnesX · 10/10/2024 18:25

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The DWP are staffed by people who are overworked and underpaid. Imagine working for them and having to claim UC.....

Original poster
caringcarer · 10/10/2024 18:35

Hunnymonster1 · 10/10/2024 17:57

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

Show quote history

Also if one person works full time and the couple are living together I'm not sure they'd be entitled to claim, or their claim would be much reduced, only 1 lot of housing benefit and if no DC then one person working from a couple means the one working is supposed to support the one at home. Also in response to an earlier post if after 5 years of fraudulent claims £100k is owed they must be claiming £20k a year not just a few pounds.

OP posts:
AskZoltar · 10/10/2024 18:39

PandoraSox · 10/10/2024 17:49

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

Exactly this. An exercise in irony perhaps?

RancidOldHag · 10/10/2024 18:42

I didn't realise they'd ever stopped.

Even though the rules and types of benefit were v different, DHSS used to check single claimants weren't co-habiting by calling at their home back in the 1980s

Rosscameasdoody · 10/10/2024 18:44

AgnesX · 10/10/2024 16:55

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.
🙄

Edited

The Birmingham Mail is also running some highly alarmist stuff about possible changes to disability benefits in the budget. They employ attention grabbing headlines designed to scare the shit out of the average disabled claimant and when you actually read the article it’s just regurgitating what’s already been said.

Livelovebehappy · 10/10/2024 19:01

WiddlinDiddlin · 10/10/2024 16:58

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.

Come on. People can't not understand the concept of when someone lives with you, then they're actually not living alone. It's not rocket science. So many excuses you're making in your post. It might be a few pounds per household, but times that by a few thousand, and you're talking a lot of money. Many people who claim single persons council tax arent on benefits, but will still try it on, so not always people on benefits.

Morph22010 · 10/10/2024 19:11

Hunnymonster1 · 10/10/2024 17:48

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

How do all these single men manage to get council flats it’s pretty much impossible where we live and we aren’t a particularly bad place housing wise

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