After the Post Office scandal, do you feel safe with a DWP "police force"?

It is actually terrifying when your only source of income is made up from benefits.
I'm not an anxious person, but I am already mindful that my review will be due in about a year, or of course, at the drop of a hat if that's what they decide.

Wanting to cut down on tax evasion and benefit fraud is hardly wanting to manipulate and control people, nor is there anything extremist about it.

I'm sure that's the intention MissAdventure. Otherwise why not simplify the system.

This government, and its supporters, do like to be able to manipulate and control. That probably tells us something about how extremist they are.

Whereas a human could peruse bamk statements and use logic, AI won't do that, but my cynical mind says perhaps that is good for the dwp.
Perhaps people will be less inclined to claim benefits if they are subject to scrutiny as and when AI decides there is an extra amount in the account.

Pammie1

GrannyGravy13

I have been pondering, I send an extended family member money during the year (by bank transfer) for their children’s birthdays, Christmas and Easter.

If this Bill goes through could these gifts lead to them being investigated?

(They are on universal credit due to health)

The simple answer is yes. Strictly speaking these payments should be declared through the UC journal to be on the safe side, and then DWP will decide whether the money should be deducted from benefit. Otherwise, if undeclared sums are picked up on checks, the claim could be suspended while they investigate.

UC has online access; Pension Credit doesn't. Making that available would take some pressure off contacting them.

I can see the number of claimants go down and those able to claim are the older part of the state pensioner cohort and already under claim by a large percentage.

Pammie1

Caleo

I wonder if it would help if the people who make and sell rotten data systems were to be heavily punished in accordance with the suffering their product caused.

Remains to be seen if any action will be taken against Fujitsu, although I believe they’ve offered to contribute towards the compensation paid to the victims.

Today is, I believe, the last day of Part 4 of the enquiry. There has been a statement on behalf of the Core Participants by their legal representatives.

I have watched most of this part. Today's statement was a really interesting summation and is well worth viewing.

The cultural view of the Sub Postmasters by those in POL, rings bells with the cultural view the government has fostered about benefit claimants. The lack of experience and knowledge or simply enough staff is mirrored in the DWP. Even the need to obey the law was set by the attitude of the Post Office to defend itself - why won't that be the same in the DWP.

There was comment on Fujitsu too. Charging to explain their own errors, too little training for PO workers, not allowing access to verify the competence of the software.

There was more and it was all rather depressing when you think that so far the government doesn't seem to have learned from it.

GrannyGravy13

I have been pondering, I send an extended family member money during the year (by bank transfer) for their children’s birthdays, Christmas and Easter.

If this Bill goes through could these gifts lead to them being investigated?

(They are on universal credit due to health)

The simple answer is yes. Strictly speaking these payments should be declared through the UC journal to be on the safe side, and then DWP will decide whether the money should be deducted from benefit. Otherwise, if undeclared sums are picked up on checks, the claim could be suspended while they investigate.

Caleo

I wonder if it would help if the people who make and sell rotten data systems were to be heavily punished in accordance with the suffering their product caused.

When the Horizon system was sold to us it was known in the tech world as a wrong-un.
People need to delve deeper into why Tony Blair signed it off and Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling gave it the thumbs down.

Pammel, we have been largely successful stopping Big Tobacco in developed countries, and we are a fair way to stopping adulterated foodstuffs and medicines being sold. Therefore there are precedents.

Caleo

I wonder if it would help if the people who make and sell rotten data systems were to be heavily punished in accordance with the suffering their product caused.

Remains to be seen if any action will be taken against Fujitsu, although I believe they’ve offered to contribute towards the compensation paid to the victims.

MissAdventure

Then there is the question of having a partner to stay.
Not strictly legal to claim benefits as a single person if you regularly have a partner stay.

Hospital - over a week, I think, and you have to inform them.

The point being that while people may have committed no "crime", it will be the stress of interviews under caution (which they can already do) and having to present years worth of financial statements for them to examine.

For disability benefits you are allowed four weeks as an inpatient and then benefit is suspended. For anyone with a motability vehicle financed with mobility component of PIP, it means that the car has to be handed back. If you’re in hospital less than 28 days but you are readmitted within 28 days of discharge, it counts as the same stay, so the two periods are added together and benefit is suspended if it takes the claimant over the 28 days allowed. Benefit is restarted on discharge, although DWP may well send a review form as a hospital stay indicates a change in condition. You can still claim UC while in hospital but any other means tested benefits are usually reduced after 28 days and stopped after 52 weeks.

I was fined £300 for failing to let the dwp know I was too ill to function.
Obviously if I had been functional I would have let them know I wasnt.
Something like that...

MissAdventure

I just googled, and the first result from care.uk says this

Even if you are uncertain whether a monetary gift will affect your eligibility for benefits, you must report it on your benefits application. Your benefits may be adjusted accordingly, but failing to report a gift could reduce your benefits or even be considered benefit fraud

Thanks MissAdventure. That's on an application and best advice when doing that. I suppose I was thinking about "change of circumstances" when a claim is up and running and the claimant receives money for a Christmas or Birthday present.

I can see me taking more people to our local "in support of the elderly" office, once this is in full flow.

I wonder if it would help if the people who make and sell rotten data systems were to be heavily punished in accordance with the suffering their product caused.

MissAdventure

I just googled, and the first result from care.uk says this

Even if you are uncertain whether a monetary gift will affect your eligibility for benefits, you must report it on your benefits application. Your benefits may be adjusted accordingly, but failing to report a gift could reduce your benefits or even be considered benefit fraud

Yep. The problem is that if AI bots programmed to look for basic anomalies, find even small payments or one offs, they will be flagged for further investigation and prompt a closer look at the claimant for further evidence of possible fraud. Among other things DWP have to satisfy themselves that the payments are not in return for undeclared work.

I was a benefit adviser in a previous life, and you’d be surprised how many people in receipt of means tested benefits are not aware that they are supposed to declare these things, or that in certain cases, they are classed as income and benefit reduced accordingly. I’ve known a few claimants who have been called into the Jobcentre and interviewed under caution after innocently supplying bank statements on which similar payments have shown up.

What worries me somewhat, is that if the initial surveillance by AI turns up more anomalies than the DWP have resources to promptly investigate, it could result in claims being suspended for long periods of time before they get around to an actual human having eyes on the situation. A lot of people who haven’t consciously done anything wrong are going to be caught up in this.

And of course, if the dwp make appointments, you will be sanctioned if you do not keep them.

No thanks, no more powers than they already have.

Then there is the question of having a partner to stay.
Not strictly legal to claim benefits as a single person if you regularly have a partner stay.

Hospital - over a week, I think, and you have to inform them.

The point being that while people may have committed no "crime", it will be the stress of interviews under caution (which they can already do) and having to present years worth of financial statements for them to examine.

petra

In the OPs link there was a link relating to a survey done by the DWP which stated that * the majority of claimants surveyed agreed with the bill*
I’m thinking that these claimants were surveyed before the proverbial hit the fan with the Post Office. I’d have a bet that they changed their minds when the realised what could happen to them.

That’s if they ever agreed in the first place. DWP have been caught out in lies quite a few times. The worst one was when PIP was introduced and the distance for the mobility test was reduced from 50m to 20m with no mention at consultation of this even being a proposal. When it was questioned in parliament Esther McVey the then minister for the disabled, said that it had been introduced as a result of the consultation, because many disability organisations had petitioned for it. Her statement was made on information supplied by DWP, which later turned out to be false. On re-examination, not a single disability organisation had suggested such a claim. But the change went ahead anyway. And people here are advocating that we trust DWP to be transparent about the extent to which they will monitor bank accounts ?

They have made that possible petra, so it would be reasonable to ask, "Why?"

I do find people's attitude to those who are claiming insurance unfathomable.

I have known several people over the years who have claimed, for example, mortgage insurance when they have been made redundant. You don't get people who use the same insurance company going around claiming "they're spending our money" or any of the stigmatising comments you hear about claiming in National Insurance.

We know that the government and the right-wing press have encouraged this but what type of person treats their neighbours in this way? The most compassionate conclusion has to be fearful people. Even so ...

I just googled, and the first result from care.uk says this

Even if you are uncertain whether a monetary gift will affect your eligibility for benefits, you must report it on your benefits application. Your benefits may be adjusted accordingly, but failing to report a gift could reduce your benefits or even be considered benefit fraud

petra

I read an article some time ago where someone put forward that if this bill was rolled out the time could come where the DWP could question how you spend your benefits.

This is the end game in my opinion. The DWP already share with and collect data from various other agencies, and this bill will give them the powers to extend that. The most insidious thing is that they will have the power to access claimant data from non financial organisations - the stated aim is that this is so ‘other types of fraud’ can be detected. So things like store loyalty cards can be used to track spending and see exactly how money is being spent. So there will come a time when disabled claimants, for example, could find their disability benefits questioned, based on their spending habits if they are deemed to not be spending enough on disability extra cost, or spending on things that seem to contradict what they have said about how their condition affects them. And this is despite the fact that disability benefits can be used for whatever the claimant sees fit.

The most worrying thing is that if this is allowed to go ahead, it will just be the start. Eventually we’ll all be monitored like this - it’s about control.

I read an article some time ago where someone put forward that if this bill was rolled out the time could come where the DWP could question how you spend your benefits.

Looking at the 'money given as gifts' it seems you only need to have declared it if it takes you over the savings threshold for the income related benefit. That is the "change of circumstance".

Can anyone confirm this? It does seem cruel and unusual just to deny people a Christmas/Birthday present.

There are three petitions running. They are on this page:

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/dwp-bank-surveillance-prompts-three-petitions-and-a-letter-to-the-times

Nannee49

If we all reverted back to cash at least "they" wouldn't be able to garner information on where we buy our knickers as doodledog suggests. By embracing online everything we are making the possibility of a surveillance state so easy

People do try ringing alarm bells from time to time. usually scorned by the 'if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear' brigade' or the 'what possible harm can there be in it?' brigade.