Families where no one has ever worked, nor wanted to, and claim all the benefits they can.

Can't remember if I was actually on here then, Marelli.
I did take a few months off at one time. However, I do not mind being classified with the majority. Your grammar looks okay to me, Marelli, although it might be rather a long sentence for most of us.

You can't remember if you were actually on here when? There was no date on the PM...

although it might be rather a long sentence for most of us

Wiv long words an subordinate clauses an all??
Difficult indeed.

Sounds very concillatory now!

Just been reading some of this. Gee Wizz, I didn't realise that you had to be of a certain intelligence to contribute to GN. I did pass three O Levels back in the 1960's. Does that count?

??

Sorry MrsJones
(Showing off again??)

By the way, Alea, I resurrected the thread, and if I hadn't Badenkate was going to. I didn't resurrect it so that someone else who had flounced off could come back on again. I seem to recall that you were going to flounce off at the same time.

Some of us care about those who are tarnished with the idea that lots of benefit claimants are fraudsters, as in the op. That's why I gave the important link to the subject.

Grannyandgrampy, there is no reason it should backfire on you. It is all done in confidence. If it's as you say it is, there are numerous people who could denounce the family, not just you.
I still say it's wrong for people to complain about those who defraud and do not do anything about it. If you are not going to do anything, it's wrong to cast aspersions. It's better just to keep quiet.
That's why people think there are 47% of benefit claimants committing fraud, because everyone claims to know somebody who does it.
I am more concerned about those benefit claimants who are defrauded, while tax cheats are told it's acceptable.

An Ipsos Mori survey in 2013 found the public believed 24% of benefits were fraudulently claimed...

From the linked article. Where is there mention of people thinking 47% of benefit claimants are committing fraud?

The title of the OP does of course include families and individuals who have never worked etc. who aren't claiming fraudulently, but have managed to avoid working for a living and are quite happy to carry on as they are.

I believe I was careful to use the passive voice in saying that the thread was resurrected without any reference to who resurrected it, but thank you for clearing that up.
I take it you had new information to add to what had been said previously, although I am not sure what there is to say that has not been said already.
Which could be why I will respectfully decline your invitation to
comment sensibly on the matter in the thread.

We have seen from the programme Benefit Street, ( I couldn't bear to watch I) how certain people end up in the benefits cycle going down generations. It was in all the newspapers, with the star apparently regaining the use of her legs and going to America and becomng quite a celebrity, so of course it goes on. There has been a big change to rules regarding claiming and it will take time for those that could work but don't, to realise that working brings with it a better life than the one they have had. I feel so sorry for the children born into that life style. Those that genuinely cannot work must feel as if they are being judged by those that abuse the system and that is so wrong, they are the ones that should get all the help they need to be independent and valued.

Obviously we read things differently, Alea.

"A dormant thread is resurrected so that somebody who had flounced off a few weeks ago could swoop in on a flying visit like the Sweeney, go for the jugular and get 2 out of her first three posts deleted !"

A dormant thread is resurrected so that....

"is resurrected"
By whom? No idea. The purpose? Ah well.

This is a late comment. I read the PM before it was deleted and was horrified that anyone would make public something that was intended to be private. We only have the poster's word for it that the member is not current. Even if she/ he has left I feel it to be unethical and rather churlish to expose what somebody has said privately, whatever the content of the PM. Disgraceful.

I suspect that some at least of the problem dates from when DLA replaced the old AA.
People we te given the benefit purely on what they claimed and no corroborating evidence was requested. Most assessments were for life or very long periods and no medical opinion was sought.
This was on the basis that the then minister Hugh Rossi stated that people would always tell the truth and should be believed.
Claims such as it could take someone 20mins to walk 20metres were accepted. I have known speedier snails!

A word of support for Galen's well informed, calm and to the point post. There are many complex reasons why people don't report neighbours, relatives or in my case, people I worked with because of concerns about their children.
SW's are bound by confidentiality. I came across some brazen benefit fraudsters but confidentiality is a real issue, and rightly so. The vast majority of benefit claimants I was involved with were genuinely in need

Stansgran
I think that benefit fraud hurts most the people who work

I think it also hurts people who are genuine benefit claimants for two reasons - one is that it takes money away from the pot which is available and two, it does antagonise everyone (as well as people in work and it must annoy other, genuine claimants) to hear about these fraudulent cases.
The statistics quoted are only the ones known about.

Sorry, forgot myself there, I am not in charge of the thread or any other and have no right to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't say.
Just wish some of you would grow up and think about what is important.

Surely that is a contradiction?
Perhaps not, as you have not told us to post about what is important, only to think about it.

I will go away to think.

I have thought, and what I think is that, whilst I believe benefit fraud is wrong, I would probably not report someone I knew who I suspected was defrauding the system.

That smacks to me of the Nazis and the Stasi, reporting on your 'friends' and neighbours.

Jalima- I agree with you about the Nazi/Stasi feel of reporting on friends, family and neighbours. As I said earlier, confidentiality was an issue for me but the main issue that would have stopped me reporting, was the desire to proactively support a family. How could you do that at the same time as phoning some benefit hot line?

You couldn't, the support you offered was far more important. The only time I have reported a neighbour was when another neighbour and I thought she was abusing her small children.
They were renting the house, we rang the NSPCC but they did a moonlight flit that night (not for the first time we found out).
Hope they caught up with her.

Nazi / Stasi. That sums it up so well. You just don't do it.

So in fact there are probably far more claiming benefits either fraudulently or unfairly because of the disinclination to report family members/neighbours etc. After all, the official statistics only include proven cases.

My husband had DLA from when he was 50 to 65 when he died.
He had fallen off a ladder and broken his back. He was in permanent pain, losing his balance, falling over, could only walk a few yards and then have to stop.
He had to fill in the same forms with the same information every year, having to relive the accident, the operations to his spine, the pain in his spine and his legs, the fact that he was doubly incontinent from the fracture.
We had doctors who did not know him coming to the house, watching him stand up and sit down, walk up stairs one foot at a time, holding onto the rail with both hands. They watched him in the kitchen, trying to peel potatoes, and they listened to his slurred speech.
It was only when he was 62 and two years after he had been diagnosed with cerebellar ataxia that they decided he could be given it for life without any more interviews.
If he'd lived past 65, that would have changed again because of this suspicion of people trying to defraud.
Everything the DWP does is to save money from those who have little.

Pardon me if this post is not calm. It is well informed and to the point.