So will there be any prosecutions?
Discussion
If the statistics are to be believed will those that are found to have been claiming when they were perfectly fit to work be prosecuted? I personally think they should be!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12954116
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12954116
I've mentioned on here before they I could claim incapacity benefit myself but don't as I consider myself able to work without assistance. I just find it incredible that so many in this country are so ill that they cannot work despite all the money spent on the NHS..... wouldn't have anything to do with massaging unemployment figures in the Labour years would it? 
Again mentioned on here before, I carried out a study during my economics dissertation and found that when unemployment dropped in certain areas (Typically 'working class' areas), that disability benefits claims increased by that drop in numbers (Areas of South Wales, North East etc).
However, in light of this, who do you blame? The claimant for taking the cash or the government for encouraging them to have a 'disability'?
Again mentioned on here before, I carried out a study during my economics dissertation and found that when unemployment dropped in certain areas (Typically 'working class' areas), that disability benefits claims increased by that drop in numbers (Areas of South Wales, North East etc).
However, in light of this, who do you blame? The claimant for taking the cash or the government for encouraging them to have a 'disability'?
Personally I think that no matter what the incitement might have been the individual is ultimately responsible.
After all is said and done the "I was told it was ok" or "I was told it was allowed" defence doesn't and neither should it cut it.
It didn't for MP's on expenses fiddles, and it wouldn't for average chap in the street with HMRC if he had been told it was ok to claim X, Y or Z then when investigated it turned out no, so surely what is good for the goose etc!
Just because someone is within the sphere of social care should not exempt them from the same standards and levels of accountability those that are fortunate enough not to be are, surely?
After all is said and done the "I was told it was ok" or "I was told it was allowed" defence doesn't and neither should it cut it.
It didn't for MP's on expenses fiddles, and it wouldn't for average chap in the street with HMRC if he had been told it was ok to claim X, Y or Z then when investigated it turned out no, so surely what is good for the goose etc!
Just because someone is within the sphere of social care should not exempt them from the same standards and levels of accountability those that are fortunate enough not to be are, surely?
Perhaps those who miraculously find themselves cured in the next week should be let off but anyone who continues to claim and has an inspector investigate them (I hear this is being planned) should face prosecution if they were found to have been trying it on all this time.
One issue that was mentioned was mental health; if you're suffering from severe depression but physically able to work, should you be allowed to claim?
One issue that was mentioned was mental health; if you're suffering from severe depression but physically able to work, should you be allowed to claim?
Without taking anything away from the thrust of this, it does assume the assessments are done properly. Of course, we know DWP always does things properly, esp when contracting out services.
Although in principle a good idea, in the current economic climate this is unlikely to be very effective. With plenty of people applying for jobs would your first choice be someone who's been claiming Incapacity Benefit for years? Taxpayers' money would get better vfm doing this at a time of full employment.
Fwiw iirc the trend to move people from unemployment to sickness has been around since the 80s.
Although in principle a good idea, in the current economic climate this is unlikely to be very effective. With plenty of people applying for jobs would your first choice be someone who's been claiming Incapacity Benefit for years? Taxpayers' money would get better vfm doing this at a time of full employment.
Fwiw iirc the trend to move people from unemployment to sickness has been around since the 80s.
RemainAllHoof said:
Perhaps those who miraculously find themselves cured in the next week should be let off but anyone who continues to claim and has an inspector investigate them (I hear this is being planned) should face prosecution if they were found to have been trying it on all this time.
One issue that was mentioned was mental health; if you're suffering from severe depression but physically able to work, should you be allowed to claim?
Yes but some of the depression stories are depressive!!One issue that was mentioned was mental health; if you're suffering from severe depression but physically able to work, should you be allowed to claim?
The fat chick who has asthma so she cant work... why does she have asthma I hear you say, well its because she eats crap and smokes 40 a day cause she loves smoking and is not willing to do exercise, she is depressed so she eats and then cant exercise so she smokes... refuses to come off fags and wont get a healthy diet as she sees it as an illness so needs to have her money to carry it on.
Or the father of 4 who has severe panic attacks and is paranoid (depression again) so he drinks a bottle of spirits a day to cope with life... yet one of the side affects of heavy drinking is paranoia and panic attacks... but he claims he is depressed and so gets his money.
I admit some people are truely depressed but some of the stories out there are shocking and are not just the odd case.
the OP is clearly implying that people are some people are claiming fraudulently. This is not necessarily the case.
If the question asked is, for example, ‘have you got a bad leg?’ and the person answers ‘yes’ then they are not being fraudulent if they do indeed ‘have a bad leg’. What the govt is actually trying to do is get deeper into the issue and discover whether ‘having a bad leg’ prevents you from working.
If the question asked is, for example, ‘have you got a bad leg?’ and the person answers ‘yes’ then they are not being fraudulent if they do indeed ‘have a bad leg’. What the govt is actually trying to do is get deeper into the issue and discover whether ‘having a bad leg’ prevents you from working.
BBC News said:
They also warned that people were not being given enough help to prepare for the test.
WTF, if you are too sick to work, then you are too sick to work, what exactly do you need to prepare for. Obviously if you are fit to work, you might like to know exactly what the tests are so you can work out a way to "fiddle" them, but then I thought that these people are the very reason that the test has been brought in.Rather than call people into assessments, I would suggest in our town that the DWP just set up a mobile office in the car park beside the pub with the bookies beside it,
They will know who to interview, as they all wear the same uniform, white socks, black slip on shoes, denims, white t shirt and black leather jacket, with an aluminium cane.
The cane will have an unworn tip, and usually lies about in the corner of the pub.
More money can be saved as 'clients' are never about before 11am, but they do 'work' until closing time.
They will know who to interview, as they all wear the same uniform, white socks, black slip on shoes, denims, white t shirt and black leather jacket, with an aluminium cane.
The cane will have an unworn tip, and usually lies about in the corner of the pub.
More money can be saved as 'clients' are never about before 11am, but they do 'work' until closing time.
Guam said:
fathomfive said:
My neighbour is on incapacity benefit. She spent a little time at the weekend telling me just how much she gets.
For the £2.5k a month it came to, I'm pretty sure I'd be incapable of working too.
Isn't it amazing just how hot your piss can get?
Crumbs how the hell do you get that much out of the System?For the £2.5k a month it came to, I'm pretty sure I'd be incapable of working too.
Isn't it amazing just how hot your piss can get?
Nice work if you can get it.
Nice tits though
RemainAllHoof said:
Du1point8 said:
I admit some people are truely depressed but some of the stories out there are shocking and are not just the odd case.
Sure. It is going to be tricky and I expect some deserving people are going to lose out.A number of years ago I was very close to a girl who suffered from agoraphobia as a result of a very nasty incident which I do not wish to relate the details of and which had also resulted in her having significant medical issues.
On one of her forms it asked the question ‘Can you walk unaided’. Now the strict answer was yes but the true situation was far enough to get from one room of her flat to another or to a car parked by her doorstep. She was unable to walk any further without some form of aid and even then couldn’t manage more than a couple of hundred very slow meters on level ground before she would have to rest.
The difference between Yes and No was about £400 per month 10 years ago iirc. In her case what would you answer given that there was no option to record the above?
rover 623gsi said:
the OP is clearly implying that people are some people are claiming fraudulently. This is not necessarily the case.
If the question asked is, for example, ‘have you got a bad leg?’ and the person answers ‘yes’ then they are not being fraudulent if they do indeed ‘have a bad leg’. What the govt is actually trying to do is get deeper into the issue and discover whether ‘having a bad leg’ prevents you from working.
To be fair that depends very much on your definition and indeed the definition of fraudulent and how it pertains to these examples... If the question asked is, for example, ‘have you got a bad leg?’ and the person answers ‘yes’ then they are not being fraudulent if they do indeed ‘have a bad leg’. What the govt is actually trying to do is get deeper into the issue and discover whether ‘having a bad leg’ prevents you from working.
Is it fraudulent if you know you can "get away" with saying "I can't work" and milking the system as it allows you to do so?
I say yes in the same vein that it is fraudulent when MP X claimed for a home allowance that the system allowed him to even though when tested it was against the rules.
Also in the same way that if person A gets told by their accountant, claim for X, Y and Z to significantly reduce their tax exposure and the revenue investigated and in turn prosecuted person A.
The similarity in all three examples is you are effectively receiving £000's in tax payers money (or avoiding paying it as owed) so therefore ought to be treated in a similar manner.
550Hep said:
Also in the same way that if person A gets told by their accountant, claim for X, Y and Z to significantly reduce their tax exposure and the revenue investigated and in turn prosecuted person A.
The similarity in all three examples is you are effectively receiving £000's in tax payers money (or avoiding paying it as owed) so therefore ought to be treated in a similar manner.
Well, that's torn it. You've reopened the tax avoidance/tax evasion debate again. I take it you have an issue with me legally moving my UK pensions off-shore within documented Inland Revenue guidelines and structures?The similarity in all three examples is you are effectively receiving £000's in tax payers money (or avoiding paying it as owed) so therefore ought to be treated in a similar manner.
Bing o said:
Well, that's torn it. You've reopened the tax avoidance/tax evasion debate again. I take it you have an issue with me legally moving my UK pensions off-shore within documented Inland Revenue guidelines and structures?
I have no problem with it, as most right thinking folks know the significant differentiator between Avoidance and Evasion is one is good planning the other is fraud!I realise there are arguments to be had in the vein of playing the tax system for maximum benefit is perhaps akin to playing the benefits system for the same, I however disagree. For the simple reason that those that do "play the system" with regards to taxation are for the most part doing it knowingly and within the rules i.e. Avoidance.
Claiming you cannot do something when you can is a lie and one to obtain a pecuniary advantage which is pretty much the definition of fraud and therefore evasion IMO. So when person X lies and say claims 15000 miles at the higher rate not just 10000 or claims for expenses never incurred, then sorry do not pass go. Which ought to be treated the same way as person X saying they cannot work when they can, they both essentially boil down to theft/fraud.
Bing o said:
550Hep said:
Also in the same way that if person A gets told by their accountant, claim for X, Y and Z to significantly reduce their tax exposure and the revenue investigated and in turn prosecuted person A.
The similarity in all three examples is you are effectively receiving £000's in tax payers money (or avoiding paying it as owed) so therefore ought to be treated in a similar manner.
Well, that's torn it. You've reopened the tax avoidance/tax evasion debate again. I take it you have an issue with me legally moving my UK pensions off-shore within documented Inland Revenue guidelines and structures?The similarity in all three examples is you are effectively receiving £000's in tax payers money (or avoiding paying it as owed) so therefore ought to be treated in a similar manner.
Glad mine is tax qualified and an accountant meaning that he wont give out dodgy advice otherwise will get struck off and tends to go with the caution rather than taking the piss out of the grey areas.
So things like pension, salary and dividends are all above board and things like clothes expenses, nights out and such, he wont even accomodate unlike some accountants that mates have and they got stung for it.
In some cases there should be... but the state does go after people to reclaim the financial elements if it's obvious abuse.
There needs to be system that is fair, but whenever there is money on offer, some will try to claim it fraudulently. Apparently the play acting from some claimants in tribunals hearings leaves folk struggling to keep straight faces ("little" things like limping on the wrong leg) and that's before you get to things like claiming being virtually unable to walk yet openly stating that you walked all the way to the hearing.
However, as I understand it, there are more fundamental issues that relate to:
1) Advisers who "help" claimants fill in the forms - claimant signs (along with declaration of accuracy) - but then gets pulled up later due to inaccuracies. There are a couple that are apparently notorious for being, shall we say, "optimistic".
2) Folk claiming on the basis that they "should" receive the benefits, even though they don't meet the criteria, and then incurring the state the cost of the appeals processes. The problem is, criteria are needed to avoid too much subjectivity *but* in certain areas (relating to mental health for example) there is a degree of subjectivity, especially if supported by the medical evidence.
3) The fact that certain benefits act as trigger to all sorts of other state aid - higher rate DLA being the classic - which makes it quite appealing, I guess, to secure in preference to the lower rate award. No easy solution to this one though, without making the system too arduous for genuine claimants.
There needs to be system that is fair, but whenever there is money on offer, some will try to claim it fraudulently. Apparently the play acting from some claimants in tribunals hearings leaves folk struggling to keep straight faces ("little" things like limping on the wrong leg) and that's before you get to things like claiming being virtually unable to walk yet openly stating that you walked all the way to the hearing.
However, as I understand it, there are more fundamental issues that relate to:
1) Advisers who "help" claimants fill in the forms - claimant signs (along with declaration of accuracy) - but then gets pulled up later due to inaccuracies. There are a couple that are apparently notorious for being, shall we say, "optimistic".
2) Folk claiming on the basis that they "should" receive the benefits, even though they don't meet the criteria, and then incurring the state the cost of the appeals processes. The problem is, criteria are needed to avoid too much subjectivity *but* in certain areas (relating to mental health for example) there is a degree of subjectivity, especially if supported by the medical evidence.
3) The fact that certain benefits act as trigger to all sorts of other state aid - higher rate DLA being the classic - which makes it quite appealing, I guess, to secure in preference to the lower rate award. No easy solution to this one though, without making the system too arduous for genuine claimants.
Sticks. said:
Although in principle a good idea, in the current economic climate this is unlikely to be very effective. With plenty of people applying for jobs would your first choice be someone who's been claiming Incapacity Benefit for years?
...last chap I hired had been on IB for three years, so it does happen - if the candidate has the right attitude.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff