Foodbank - 3 cars

[TalkToTheHand123]

Am I being unreasonable to think a family with 2 cars and a big fancy house shouldn't be using foodbanks regularly? No disability issues.

Grow up. It's not difficult to tell a quality handbag from a cheap one.

I have seen this scenario. The people in question had an inter-generational lack of knowledge that meant they didn't have the life skills to know any different. They'd probably buy something from McDonalds they knew the kid would eat, then eat the food bank things themselves. That's partly why you work with some of these people, to help give them more skills and knowledge so they can help themselves more. It's not going to happen overnight though.

If I were short on food I could buy a few cheap veges and do a lot with them. Not everyone knows how to do that. It's not a level playing field we're born into.

It doesn't matter what you think. You have to defer to the medical opinion and reports that are provided. Even if you think they are pulling a fast one, if they meet the criteria, they meet the criteria.

You sure? You've made some very wrong assumptions before...

You really don’t get it do you - despite several people clarifying how it works. A PIP assessor has no control over whether a claimant gets benefit or not. All they do is assess the claimant and provide reports to the decision makers at DWP. And the reports are based on objective eligibility rules which are applied in exactly the same way to all claimants to ensure consistency. The conclusions are evidence-based on whether or not the actual effects of the disability match the criteria for eligibility. The assessors use their medical experience and any medical evidence the claimant supplies themselves. There is no room for judgement based on whether they think the claimant is taking the piss. And nor should there be.

Agree. Do you think OP thinks telling a genuine PIP claimant from a piss taker is the same as discerning a cheap handbag from an expensive one ?

Never claimed that to be the same thing.

The way you present your findings can be the difference between someone receiving payments and someone who doesn't.

And they can appeal, and if you haven't been fair and have too many issues with your processing, you lose your job.

Life has a way of humbling those with your judgemental attitude OP. I've seen it so many times.

What a crock of shit. I do actually collect food bank parcels for clients who are desperate. They get a bag of food which does help but is hardly full of luxuries.
i (or another professional) has to refer them and there is a limit of 3 times in 6 months.
i see the people who use them and they are not turning up in luxury cars & there’s definitely not shop keepers buying stuff to resell. You have never been anywhere near a food bank op!

You can overide the limit by creating a new profile, you just omit certain details or sometimes it just lets you.

With the spiraling costs, it's inevitable to be clamped down on. It's unsustainable.

Rubbish. We do remember faces and addresses and are often engaged with the person in other supportive ways. They are known to us in some capacity. Most of the time they're only at the food bank because we've referred them there in the first place. It's not that easy.

If the criteria change, then all new applications will be assessed against that. It's still not the choice of the individual assessor.

It doesn't matter. They will have to follow the rules ;) End result the same. Original comment was a light hearted joke. You do know what a joke is?

Do you know what a joke is?

Do you know what a joke is? It’s supposed to make people laugh, how many people do you think are laughing 🤔?

I was usually going by myself on behalf of them though most of the time as I drove but didn't have insurance for customers, or they made on they weren't well, but were able to go for their drugs and alcohol later on.

The staff never rejected those with vouchers as far as I am aware. We did get emails requesting we don't issue vouchers to some customers as they 'weren't engaging' with the services and to follow the guidance of the criteria when isssuing vouchers or to check a profile was already on the system before cresting a new one.

So, to summarise. OP is/was a food bank volunteer (Trussell Trust), a youth worker and a PIP assessor. She is/was better than all her colleagues at these places because none of them have the skills to spot a wrong un like what she has (9 out of 10 faking).

The 3 (or two) car lady wasn’t actually using a food bank, that was a different lady on the Sky News piece. I’ve lost track of who had the £300 handbag (definitely not a fake, OP has a special gift for that too). Shopkeepers - delete ethnicity - are stocking their shops from the food banks. Maybe working for Trading Standards would be a good next step?

It's irellevant. The point is it wasn't to be taken literally.

I haven't seen anything in your posts that comes across as humour. Just bigoted vitriol towards vulnerable people.

So you’re going to commit fraud.

Nope. The way you present your findings is controlled and there are even set phrases to be used on the reports. Nothing is left to anyone’s gut feeling - everything is evidence based. You don’t have free rein to decide who is taking the piss and who isn’t and build that into the report. You assess, you allot points for each category according to the medical findings of how the claimants’ disability affects each of the activities assessed. Then you pass the report on to the decision maker. If the claimant meets the criteria, they get benefit. If they don’t they don’t.

If a report goes to the decision maker and they think there’s something amiss it gets banged back for auditing. No decision maker is going to base a benefit decision on unsound evidence because they will bear some responsibility for the claimant going to expensive appeal and probably winning - tribunals will pick assessors’ reports apart and scrutinise them, and if they’re not evidence based they’re set aside.

Left to people like you the benefit bill would sky rocket even more, because the people you assess would inevitably receive unfair decisions and have no alternative but to go to appeal. Have you any idea of how expensive that is ? That’s why the DWP is currently reviewing their systems and there’s a consultation out for disabled people to engage with the design of a better, fairer system which will eventually be cheaper because the focus is on a ‘right first time’ approach to benefit decisions so there will be less need for the appeals process. If they get it right it will save a fortune. And you can bet your bippy nothing will be left to the whim of people like you who think it’s right to deny someone benefit they’re entitled to because you don’t think they’re worthy.

She wouldn’t get the chance. Assessment reports have come in for a lot of scrutiny in recent years because so many claimants are successful at tribunal, having been initially denied benefit. Reports are subject to scrutiny by auditors before they’re sent to DWP decision makers. Anything that’s not evidence based is sent back to be revised. And decision makers are ultimately responsible for making an accurate benefit decision - if they’re not happy with information contained in the reports they can ask for clarification before making a decision rather than risk the claimant going to appeal.

DWP are currently reviewing their processes for PIP with a ‘right first time’ directive - there was a consultation with disabled people which I think closed in June. They were invited to give their opinion on how the process can be made fairer and more transparent, to achieve better quality decisions and avoid expensive appeals wherever possible.

I’ve accompanied claimants to appeal hearings and pretty much every aspect of the assessors report and the decision based on it is picked apart and scrutinised in detail by experts in the field of medicine, social care and the application of disability law. With the attitude OP has, she wouldn’t last five minutes as an assessor. And after nearly fifteen years of engagement with the PIP process as a disability outreach worker I can pretty much guarantee that the updated processes won’t be leaving anything to the gut feeling of any assessor about ‘piss takers’.

I’m bloody scared. I’m for review in 2026 and I’m worse than I was. I can’t risk being left with no car and no way to pay for my support because an assessor has a gut feeling that I’m defrauding the system.