£54m benefit fraud!

[mickd1961]

Mel Stride, Secretary of state for work & pensions, also says he is "immensely proud" of the DWP investigators concerned for bringing them to justice! Horse/Stable Door/Bolted FFS!

I get that the DWP deal with millions of cases but it has for too long been far from robust in terms of its systems and, on one hand, there are the more vulnerable in our society who are failed miserably by them whilst others too easily get away with playing the system.

I'm sure that we have all, at some point, been aware of individuals who have been able to "play the system" but this, I believe, is primarily down to 2 things-firstly, the lack of numbers of investigators (the argument being that the cost of this would be higher than the losses prevented) and secondly, the means of payment.

These days, it is a lot harder to claim than it was in the past but as regards the latter it remains open to abuse. For example, although I work, our circumstances mean that I can claim a small proportion of both housing benefit and council tax rebate. Currently this is claimed via the local council but housing benefit will be moving to Universal Credit very shortly and so I discussed this with a local Benefits officer from the council (for whom I have nothing but praise for btw). The UC system still allows payments into an individual's bank account rather than directly into their rent account. Effectively this gives that person the responsibility for using that money to help pay for what it is designed to help them with, such as rent. For those more inclined to spend their money on booze, fags, mobile phones etc. rather than on their rent or who simply cannot budget properly this system enables that. As councils cannot make people homeless the punishments to help prevent it are limited. No different from years ago when my wife (qualified in Early Years development and related) was a child minder. Instead of the government paying minders directly, the money went to the claimant. The vast majority paid but we had one who owed us hundreds whilst using the money for holidays and towards a new car. The little girl concerned needed our support so we were reluctant to simply stop minding her until we were paid and we ended up losing all that money as we had very little chance of ever reclaiming it. Considering how poorly paid the sector was anyway, this was a big part in us deciding not to child mind anymore.

Like all large organizations, the DWP has both some truly cr ap employees and some really good ones but the systems they work with are a big part of the problem. After 13 years of Tory government ( who seem to believe far more in stick than carrot) an increasing number of the nation's poorest and more vulnerable are falling into poverty yet, at the same time, under their watch, abuses like the above continue to happen.

I get that any processes that have to deal with millions of individual cases are, by nature, going to have some loop holes and that you cannot possibly tailor it to suit all nor fund the sheer number of investigators that would be needed to double check every claim but surely it is not too hard to see some of the failings here? The lock down payment initiative was a similarly a blanket process that genuinely helped many in need but rewarded others (80% of my pay for staying at home, sitting on my arse? No travel costs or childcare ones? Thanks very much!) and saw others who weren't eligible (some self employed) lose business, houses, everything.

The system can never be perfect but it can, and should, be much better.

Such good points Omeg.

At one point I owned 7 very tidy and modern 2 bed houses that we rented out and we happily took DHSS customers whose housing benefit paid the rent.

Then Labour under Gordon Brown as Chancellor decided it was a good idea to make claimants “more fiscally responsible” by giving them the rent and we then had to get the payment off the tenant!

This was a disaster, so many of these claimants put their own wishes and desires first, many are incapable of budgeting.

We had to stop accepting any DHSS customers, it was a shame because 40% of them were good customers but the other 60% ruined it for them.

Government need to learn that you can’t teach stupid and feckless!

In regards to benefit fraud I think it’s easy to solve.

Every claimant should have a biometric type credit card that reads their iris along with their fingerprints on file, I’d also take their DNA.

Each claim form for a card to access benefits should require all of these things so that the moment a person applies a second time an alert comes up.

If found applying for a second lot of benefits under assumed name the legally allowed first claim should be cancelled so that they get nothing.

Given we’re losing £54b in a year in this fraud it would be worth spending multiple billions setting up a virtually foolproof system.