To think that this survey is at odds with what the government is telling us ?

[ThreadGuardDog]

The results of a major UK survey into disability benefits has suggested that 49% of the public support these benefits and would support more being spent on them in the future even if it meant higher taxes. This seems to fly in the face of everything the government is telling us about the need to reduce them.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4grdk95vgno

@Redsofacushionsandsnacks

Oh do stop with the hyperbole.

Deal. But only if you stop with the witch-hunting hysteria.

@baroqueandblue don't assume I am saying anything.
I am asking why you state more money in fraud detection would not be worth the investment. The answer seems to be you think so, but have no evidence.

I worked for DWP - specifically in disability benefits. I’m now in disability support as an outreach worker. The fraud figures from DWP are very low and it’s accepted that deliberate fraud isn’t the problem. It’s a number of factors. The main one of which is the sheer number of claimants. It ballooned because PIP was opened up to stand alone mental health claims and has ballooned again since the pandemic.

It’s not that people are claiming fraudulently it’s that the benefit was opened up to those who were unable to claim under the previous system. So it was inevitable that costs would rise. But as ever, when governments are trying to push through unpopular reforms, the rhetoric doesn’t reflect the facts. Much easier to cut disability support by presenting disabled people as feckless and fraudulent, than genuinely reliant on help with the sometimes overwhelming cost of living with a disability.

You still haven’t answered my question upthread as to what you believe self reporting to be. Because PIP is only self reporting in the first instance - the application stage. At the assessment stage you have to be able to justify everything you’ve said and the medical evidence and balance of probabilities has to support it. And again, given that PIP doesn’t directly consider the disability itself, but the impact on daily life, any assessment of disability has to include self reporting. So if not via the claimant, then who ? Who will know better than the claimant as to how their own disability impacts their life ? You seem to be discounting it as an option based purely on the assumption that the claimant might lie, without factoring in that there are inbuilt safeguards designed to catch out the lies/inaccuracies.

She doesn’t know that, because she can’t. HMRC themselves say there is no way to document undetected fraud.
But, if we take the Covid loans for example, 7.5% of those have been found to be fraudulent. If we apply that figure to the £333bn welfare bill that would be a saving of almost £25bn per year, which is an awful lot of money that could go to the people that truly need it. It’s a crude tool I agree and might be wildly inaccurate but the fact is, unless we actually check, how do we know?

and this is exactly why this PIP bill is out of control. Because it's not based on something objective which can be validated.

Of course people will say whatever to get the money, they will even believe what they are saying.

I don't challenge for a minute that there are vast numbers of disabled/very ill people who need a lot of support.

There are also vast numbers who just use current system to milk it. What kind of extra money is needed for eg. depression? you need therapy and medication, absolutely, but there are no expense related to this specifically, so made do with UC if you can't work. The same goes for many other cases.

There was a posted who arranged her uni student DD to claim PIP for ADHD. Reason - she burns food so needs takeaways and uncomfortable to use public transport, so needs taxis. Yet she's able to study at uni. This is just ridiculous.

yes indeed, I read 150k adults have yet to be transitioned from DLA to PIP.

The Tories and their light blue mates are out in force on this thread. "You're just a bit 'down and bluesy', what possible reason could you have for supplementary income that might help cover the real costs of your housing, bills, personal hygiene, nutritious food, recreation?!" Basic human expenses that the pitiful amounts given in UC (and many 'jobs') barely touch, in reality. And which would go a long way to improving mental health and prospects for employment in the future.

On here, it's "I'll grab whatever I can get my hands on, and you'll make do with what you're given. And if you can't make do (while I employ my relatively greater mental and physical health to pull whatever goods, property and services I can into my personal stash), it's not my problem."

Me, me, me. And the only way you can get away with it is by scapegoating those who can't be as ruthless and grabby as you.

I think this number were left on DLA permanently because they were past the cut off age for transition in 2013. PIP is a working age benefit, and the cut off age was designed to protect those who would have reached retirement age before transitioning.

You can’t get PIP for simple anxiety and depression treated by primary care (GP). This is one of the most widely held misconceptions on MN. There has to be an enduring and substantial mental health problem which has an overwhelming impact on daily life and for which there has been or is ongoing support from secondary care, consultant led mental health teams. Even then it’s very difficult to secure an award. And for those people who satisfy these criteria, yes there is a very real cost attached to living with that disability.

There was a posted who arranged her uni student DD to claim PIP for ADHD. Reason - she burns food so needs takeaways and uncomfortable to use public transport, so needs taxis. Yet she's able to study at uni. This is just ridiculous.

There would have been much more to the award that simply burning food and being unhappy about using public transport. Why on earth do you and others on this thread think that assessors just award benefit on what the claimant is telling them ? Everything a claimant says on an application form has to be justified and supported by medical evidence. How are you under the impression that the claimants’ statements can’t be validated when that is what the assessor is there for ?

HMRC doesn’t oversee PIP, that’s the DWP. It’s not a matter of undocumented fraud - very many PIP claimants are caught out at the assessment if they are inaccurate or say something that’s not true, so they are not awarded benefit. Others don’t come forward in reporting a change for the better before the end of their award period - there are bettors reasons but that’s picked up at review and documented. No system is infallible and what the DWP are saying when they publish low deliberate fraud figures is that this is the what they are aware of. As I said before, fraud isn’t the problem and doesn’t represent the savings that would be made by changing eligibility criteria to reduce the number of claims, along with improving the assessment processes so that decision are right first time and the need for hugely expensive tribunals is eliminated.

As a matter of interest what do you think increased fraud investigation would look like ? Do you favour investigating every single claimant ? What would be the criteria for selecting those for investigation ?

I think that after twenty odd years in disability support, dealing with PIP in one form or another every day, I just might have a better idea of why the cost has risen so sharply because I’m aware of the facts and not just making a blanket assumption that it’s entirely down to people routinely committing fraud and that more investigation is the answer.

And as I have said repeatedly and you have ignored, my equally relevant experience in my working life does not reflect yours. Why do you assume you are the only person with experience of the sector? Is it simply because my experience contradicts your narrative?

i haven’t ignored anything. You haven’t elaborated on your ‘equally relevant’ experience so how am I to know what that is ? I don’t have a narrative. I comment based on personal and professional experience. You, however haven’t answered a single question I’ve asked you so why are you surprised I’m assuming that’s because you don’t know the answers ?

There is so much ‘talking down to the uninformed” on this thread

If that’s referring to me, that’s not my intention. There are so many misconceptions about PIP driving this conversation and I’m trying to keep it factual.

Didn’t DWP spend £100m or so hiring more fraud investigators right before Labour won the election? It’s interesting how despite investigating, they didn’t find more fraud in PIP, but loads more amongst ‘hard working’ UC claimants?

And on behalf of many, I'm sure, thank you very much for that!

£5.2 billion a year in fraudulent UC claims (8%).
Under-declaration of income from work was the main cause of fraud in 2025.

Fraud in PIP- £0.1 billion (0.4%)

But yeah let’s blame the PIP disability benefit for the high benefits bill and go on about fraud.

source https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2024-to-2025-estimates/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2025#universal-credit-overpayments-and-underpayments

It was actually UC that was given more resources to target fraud, yes. Fraud in the disability benefits sector has always been low, but more resources were targeted to UC when it became clear that fraud was rising - not just individual fraud, but organised crime. One of the first claimants to be prosecuted was a family who owned and were renting out a number of properties and all were claiming UC as well - it dated back to the pandemic when rules were relaxed and checks weren’t routinely carried out. The amount of overpaid benefits in that one case ran into the hundreds of thousands.

Not read the whole thread so apologies if this has already been stated but perhaps we need to be looking at redefining disability.
Certain conditions should automatically receive disability benefits. Others can go on a list where an assessment would be made. Some get taken off altogether - back pain (unless it's been given a specific diagnosis), anxiety & depression, autism, ADHD spring to mind. No doubt these conditions make life more challenging but they don't in the main cost a lot of money. More money should be allocated to supporting therapies for these conditions and providing suitable jobs.

The definition of disabilty is enshrined in law - the Equality Act 2010 defines it as any condition likely to last 12 months or more which has a significant and long term impact on day to day living.

We moved away from automatically giving benefits just on the grounds of a particular condition or disability because no one condition affects any two people in the same way. PIP doesn’t look at the actual disability or health condition but at how it affects the claimant in a range of day to day activities designed to assess the impact and translate it into extra cost. There are a few conditions which are automatically treated as disabilities under the EA2010 - cancer and MS being among them, but that doesn’t automatically mean they would attract benefit. While I can understand your reasoning, I don’t think creating a two tier system of disability would necessarily solve the problem.

And those of us without a diagnosis?

And why should someone get money because they have a diagnosis but manage life fairly well? Meanwhile there are people whose conditions mean they won't automatically qualify but do cause a lot of needs

Exactly. I think there is a lot wrong with the PIP system and I don’t claim to know the best way to fix it, but I do think the premise on which it’s based is a fair one - that the impact of the condition or disability on daily living are what matter, and not the disability itself. The EA2010 doesn’t demand a formal diagnosis for the consideration of disability and by default any system for the assessment of disabilty would have to follow that. The safeguarding of people whose conditions are not straightforward and for whom diagnosis is difficult and protracted needs to be a consideration.