Benefit Cheats?

Nonnie, all I can do is give you government statistics. It's not my fault if you do not believe them. I do not either, as it happens, but Full Fact do a lot of research as do the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
How much proof do you have that it is more than that? It is actually 0.8% according to government statistics. I am sure if they could get it higher, they would because they want to penalise the poor all the time.
In 1966 I was a married woman, and I earned more than my husband. My eldest son was born in January 1967.

Although I agree that benefit cheats should be brought to book, I dislike the way everyone tends to be tarred with the same brush should they need help from the benefit section.

If the Government wants to become heavy handed, that would only be fair, when taxpayers money is being squandered, if the same heavy handed approach was taken with all offenders.

There is an interesting counter-argument called Parasite Street (I've tried to load the page to put a link but it won't load for some reason) but snippets from elsewhere state:

'We have all heard of Benefit Street, where everyone in the street is on some from of Social Benefits, the people who the evil ConDem Government wish to screw.

We hear far less of Parasite Street, the people who are parasites on the rest of society, the tax-dodgers, the bankers, the buy-to-let landlords.

Subsidies to Parasite Street cost 54x that of Benefit Fraud.

- Profiteering by buy-to-let landlords
- Subsidies to too-big-to-fail banks
- Poverty pay by rich corporations
- Tax-dodging by the super-rich

- Total £65 billion

- Benefit fraud =

- Total £1.2 billion '

The above info taken from keithpp.wordpress.com/tag/parasite-street/ but I think the proper address for full info is www.parasite-street.co.uk for any that want to try it themselves.

That's quite a difference and does beg the question why the larger amount isn't also hunted down.

Excuse me, Nonnie, but you appear to be calling me a liar. I interviewed people for benefits in my first job. This was in 1966. My sister did the same when she left school four years later, in the same office.
People in jobcentres these days do the same, except it's usually done on computer, instead of written down.

I don't think Nonnie was doubting your word, durhamjen, just speculating that such a job wouldn't be given to someone with no experience these days.

Well done, Holly.
I think one reason that not so much is made of Parasite Street syndrome is because of who owns the media.
Another reason is that the government has drastically reduced the number of tax inspectors in HMRC. In fact I think it's mentioned in www.falseeconomy.org.uk that they are closing all the tax centres so people cannot go and discuss their problems with the tax inspectors. Not that those who fleece us of £65 billion, which would pay for all the benefits needed so that we would not need foodbanks, ever go to a tax office.

www.falseeconomy.org.uk

I qualified in 1968. My first job as a houseman in hospital earned£800 a year. For that I worked a 5 1/2 day week with every other weekend off, the weekend off starting at 12.30 pm on a sat . I was on call every Monday Wednesday and Friday. This meant that if I was 'on' that weekend, I would have worked nonstop from Friday morning til Tuesday evening. Sleep was little or non when on call. By the end of the year I was exhausted.
Oh! We did get 2/52 weeks holiday in the year.
Try getting anybody to do that today.
I now see people who say that it doesn't pay to work at the minimum rate!

Nonnie. You seem to think that you have to have some sort of degree to work in the Job Centres. It's a ' tick box' job. Not a lot of intellect needed.

I remember those days Djen, even in my days in the DHSS clerks were getting less than the claimants

Which year did you qualify Galen. OH qualifed UCH 69- and worked up to 140hrs for just under 1000 per year as a houseman and not much less or more as SHO. We had to go and live in his room at the hospital in the end as we could not afford to rent in SW London (and due to change over to sea gas + coal strike = no heating for months- I was crippled by accident and could not come up or down stairs on my own or use public transport- we never claimed anything).

durham it is not proof though is it? It is just what they think. No one can possibly know the extent of fraud because we keep reading of people being found out who have been getting away with it for years! Presumably others are getting away with it too? I don't understand why you can't see that. There can only ever be an estimate, never proof.

I think we all know about the bias of the JRF too.

Just a quick summary of what it is like to be on benefits elsewhere in Europe, I am in the city which most people in the UK blame for all their problems. 5 years ago my health failed, I first had to apply for Social Security, a woman came to my house after I had filled in all the forms and had 3 interviews, she looked everywhere, if she had decided I had anything worth selling it would have been taken for auction, this would have included T.Vs stereos and computors, mine was too old to be worth anything and as I was claiming for invalidity I was told I could keep it. I after 3 months started to recieve 738€ a month, this is the amount every single person gets, no housing benefit etc. Every month I had to take all my bank statements to my Assistant Social where they checked I had paid all my essential bills rent, gas/electrc, health insurance, if they were not paid or they think you are misusing your money thye stop it.
I now get 817€ a month invalidity benefit, I am a little better off by renting an apartment from my SIL,
There is no personal assesment here, for SS everyone gets the same and you are expected to get on with it. Council(Commune) housing is only for working people particularily those in the essential services and is means tested. Social housing has a 5 year waiting list when you move into your commune, and does tend to be taken by non EU immigrants.
I really don't know what they are moaning about on the small Island, I would love to get the benefits they do.
I could go on and if anyone is really interested they can PM me.
No I am not coming back I would still rather live here than there.

Nonnie, that is just silly. Every time the government comes up with any statistics they are out of date, so there is no proof that any statistic in the Office of National Statistics is correct. Every day someone new goes on the list of people getting food from the foodbanks. So the numbers are not proof. Every day someone else gets locked out of their houses, the locks changed because they could not afford the rent, so the statistics on the homeless are not proof.
If it wasn't for the Rowntree research, you would not have bank holidays. Lots more people would still be living in slums. The Rowntrees have been researching poverty for over a century, and good for them, I say.
What do you mean about their bias? I think I am learning a bit about your bias, too.

Nonnie, even if some people have been defrauding large amounts for a long time, it still gets added into the annual amount taken back by the government and then worked out as a percentage of the money handed out in that year. I do not see how you cannot understand that.
Every year there might be a few people who do fraud on a big scale, but nothing like the amount of tax fraud there is.
I have just read that the HMRC is going after buy to let landlords who defraud. The amount owed is over half a billion. Now, I am not sure how they work that out, and I am sure that there are some landlords that they have not found out about, so obviously that is not proof. Does that mean that the government should not claim there is half a billion because it's not completely accurate?

I will give up on this durham, you just don't seem to understand what I am saying. "even if some people have been defrauding large amounts for a long time, it still gets added into the annual amount taken back by the government and then worked out as a percentage of the money handed out in that year." Yes, that is the fraud known about! No one can possibly know about the fraud which is not known about, Obvious to me.

Not entering the debate, but just asking the question:

When percentages such as those being discussed are worked out is the state pension included as part of the whole? If so, this would distort the percentage arrived at as benefit fraud.
IMO the state pension should not be termed a 'benefit' and I would not think that the pension itself would be open to any fraudulent claims.
If state pensions account for 44% of the total benefit bill, then is this amount taken away before other calculations are made?
Statistics can always be manipulated to suit whatever purpose is in mind.

I agree rose never understood why pensions should be included in the welfare budget. Topping up the pensions of those who need it should be included though.

Nonnie, you obviously do not understand me.
If we cannot discuss fraud because we do not know about all of it, then we cannot discuss anything because we do not know about all of it!
That makes obvious sense to me.
By the way, I've just been checking on the credentials of everyone on the board of the JRF and I cannot find anyone I would have problems with apart from the finance director of Nestle. He's probably the only one you would like on the board.

Wasn't there an America VP who said something circular about known and not known?
Seems to ring a bell somewhere!
Just asking.
Nicely

https://fullfact.org/finder/economy/welfare_pensions/
I'm sure I put this on earlier, Rosequartz, but it shows you how the government gives statistics. You have to do a few clicks to get the information you want.
Giving rough figures the government pays £160+billion in welfare payments, of which £80+ billion are pensions.
It estimates, because it isn't silly enough to assume it knows, that benefit fraud is between £0.9 billion and £1.6 billion.
Whatever, I hope you'll agree that benefits fraud is only a fraction of the money lost to tax fraud.

Galen, you often mention the number of people you meet who are on tribunals or appeals. What is the comparative percentage of people who are getting benefits fraudulently?

https://fullfact.org/finder/economy/welfare_pensions/

Galen this one?

“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don't know we don't know.”
― Donald Rumsfeld

durhamjen you could not be more wrong with regard to opinions held Nonnie re. the finance director of Nestle if you tried!

Neither is right though and all should be cracked down on as we are all the poorer for it (including bankers bonuses, expenses cheats, councillors and quangocrats on jollies etc).

Poorer financially and poorer morally as a society.

I see Nonnie's point that we can't know for sure the true extent of benefit fraud because some people have not been found out.

But it must also be true that we don't know the true extent of tax avoidance, fiddling of expenses, police corruption and so on which is also likely be higher than estimated.

So it sort of evens out!

So why is Nonnie against the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's work on poverty, Phoenix? "I think we all know about the bias of the JRF" to quote her.
Yes, Rose, I agree, but the people who are poorer for it morally are the ones who fleece us for the most, though. I am not standing up for the poor who take benefits fraudulently, but the system is stacked against them. In fact, there is as much money saved by the government not paying benefits out, or mistakes as they call it. So benefit fraud does not cost us in the whole scheme of things. (Hides from flack.)
I call it benefit fraud to sanction people the way it's done and force them to go to food banks to feed their families.
The ones who commit tax fraud actually pay clever accountants and lawyers to do it for them, then hide the proceeds offshore. They are the ones who are morally bankrupt in my opinion.