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

Germanshepherdsmum

How do you expect decisions to be made without evidence?

For disability benefits you can send comprehensive evidence with your claim, but if the assessor disagrees with it benefit will be denied and the claimant will eventually have to go to tribunal to get a sane decision. The system isn’t fit for purpose and is weighted against the claimant..

DaisyAnneReturns

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.

To be honest the online UC journal is pretty useless for reporting one off payments and changes of circumstances - you click on report, choose the right option and all that happens is that you are told to note in in your journal. A friend of mine rang DWP to report that they wanted to end a UC claim as they had found work. They were told to note it in their journal and it would be dealt with. It resulted in an overpayment of benefit because DWP didn’t pick it up for three months.

The thing is, there is ample, proven evidence of their findings having no relation to what actually happened in the interview.

If people knew they were neutral, it wouldn't be so bad.

How do you expect decisions to be made without evidence?

Some of these comments make me very angry, some people need to wake up to what is going on,,the dwp are not only checking people3 they suspect of fraud,as explained inb another post my son had a stroke and cannot cope with figures or anything written etc, he lost his speech and has plenty of proof /evidence ,of his illness,but he was asked to send v4 months bank statements in on his journal which he cant manage now, i am helping with it,the stress of it has caused another stroke, and they still insist on doing a capability for work assessment, because they have asked his GP to send them a rundown of how his stroke affects him, which hasn;t got round to doing yet, all this is more stress,he will never work again,and says he cant cope,it is cruel targeting disabled people like this, are they trying to kill people off, because i am afraid they might succeed,i dont know why some think i5t is scaremongering, maybe when it happens to them they might change their minds

That's good to hear.

I’m perfectly fine thank you.

You do sound very irritable Germanshepherdsmum Are you okay? I know the weather gets to be too much for some people by February.

I have used the word ‘bizarre’ twice today, so no, I am not aiming at anything I disagree with.

No Germanshepherdsmum I am not suggesting anything about those particular posts. But any thesis - and that is what an opinion is - may be strong or weak. That is what we are yet to find out.

You seem to be basing all your arguments today, simply on the word "bizarre* aimed at anything you disagree with. It could work, but maybe find a new 'word of the day' for tomorrow

That's what people are afraid of. That the bots will pick up on random one off amounts and people will be brought in for interview. As I said it's all conjecture for now.

Exactly.

AGAA4

There must be thousands of people on benefits who receive money gifts occasionally. I would think the DWP would investigate if someone was receiving regular amounts into their account every month.
It would take too many hours to check on odd amounts being credited once or twice a year to so many people.

That’s what AI is for. Done in seconds.

Very true.
Of course, putting the word out is enough to frighten some people.

We don't know how the system will work yet. If AI flags a potential fraud will there be a further check before someone is called in for interview?
Otherwise there could be long queues as they are short staffed. It is all conjecture at the moment.

Let's hope so.
It won't be pointless though, if it means people with anxiety issues or agoraphobia, or whatever decide that they just can't cope with an interview.

It will have been a success at "getting people off benefits".

I would expect the AI to be programmed so as to only pick up suspicious receipts which may be evidence of employment or not being the single unsupported person a claimant said they were. To pick up occasional small receipts would just create too much pointless work for humans.

Well, will AI recognise that, or trigger the claimant being called in for an interview?
There is nothing you can do, if it does, because you'll receive a sanction if you do not attend.

There must be thousands of people on benefits who receive money gifts occasionally. I would think the DWP would investigate if someone was receiving regular amounts into their account every month.
It would take too many hours to check on odd amounts being credited once or twice a year to so many people.

My fingers are doing mad things with my keyboard.
I can hardlyvworl out what I'm writing.

I'm nicely on the fence on this one.
I think they are trying to reduce claimants, as well as fraudsters.

People who are deliberately flexing the system wont have a name account with 150 once a year on their birthday, from their mum showing.

Thay will be normal, everyday people who haven't given it a thought, because their intention isn't to deceive.

Are you suggesting that one opinion has less validity than the other? Let me guess whose that might be. In your view. So, in your opinion, a desire to cut down on tax evasion and benefit fraud is manipulative, controlling and extremist. Quite bizarre.

There is nothing wrong with fighting benefit fraud, bit just as well for people to know that they are probably helping someone commit it, by helping out someone, or simply giving them christmas money.

That will include plenty here.

Germanshepherdsmum

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.

Your opinion Germanshepherdsmum, not mine. They are both permissible so far, but not necessarily, equally valid.

Pammie1

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.

Thanks Pammiel for your posts, they seem to have encouraged some posters to accept the potential for things to go badly wrong for ‘ordinary’ benefit claimants. Benefits can be stopped and stay stopped for weeks before being reinstated when the investigation confirms - no need to suspend in the first place.

As well as the Post Office and the DWP, I’m concerned about similar powers in Trading Standards. I’m aware of people losing their business as a result of investigations run like the ones the Post Office has now been found to have acted outside the law