Disabled try to storm parliament.

[Supertramp]

It doesn't follow that there must be huge numbers of people defrauding the system.

 

If the cost of fraud versus the amount not claimed is neutral or better you can definitely take a chill pill. The evidence anyway is that unclaimed benefits is massively more than the amount lost to fraud.

 

.

 

Ermm what, you still need to go after the fraudsters! All that means is people who don't need the money get it and the people who need it are getting it.

[loraward]

It doesn't follow that there must be huge numbers of people defrauding the system.

Correct, but it also doesn't follow that it isn't huge.

 

If the cost of fraud versus the amount not claimed is neutral or better you can definitely take a chill pill. The evidence anyway is that unclaimed benefits is massively more than the amount lost to fraud.

 

Only if you assume that fraud is low, if you assume that your average fraudster is smart enough to hide their fraud then you can just as easily assume that its high.

 

The evidence points to a more serious problem and that is the nature of the system and the way people can cynically game it fully within the law.

I would include those people gaming it to be committing fraud.

 

Choosing to work 16 hours and claiming benefits is fraud if you could choose to work 30 hours.

 

 

A couple of years ago I'd have defended tax credits to the Max but now I can't any more, now I know what is going on it makes me sick to the stomach. My household income is quite high but now I've become aware that people are leading similar lifestyles, driving nice cars and living in nice houses while doing jobs like walking dogs for 16 hours a week. Some sites I've seen even have people boasting how they declared tax credits income to get mortgages. That is messed up - I've have no objection if my tax goes on housing benefit for the needy but now it seems I pay a lot of tax to help pay for other people's mortgages.

 

That's probably were most of the fraud is.

 

System has got to change. It's totally wrong.

 

I'm under the impression that universal credits will correct most of these anomalies, for instance someone self employed and claiming to work 16 hours will be assumed to be working full time on minimum wage for the purposes of their claim. No more selling the big issue to get tax credits because it will be assumed you are earning £11830 unless you are earning more than that.

[Weazel2006]

Universal credit is going to remove the last safety net those in need have.

[I1L2T3]

Ermm what, you still need to go after the fraudsters! All that means is people who don't need the money get it and the people who need it are getting it.

 

Of course we still need to go after the fraudsters

 

---------- Post added 25-06-2015 at 20:20 ----------

 

Correct, but it also doesn't follow that it isn't huge.

 

Only if you assume that fraud is low, if you assume that your average fraudster is smart enough to hide their fraud then you can just as easily assume that its high.

 

I would include those people gaming it to be committing fraud.

 

Choosing to work 16 hours and claiming benefits is fraud if you could choose to work 30 hours.

 

That's probably were most of the fraud is.

 

I'm under the impression that universal credits will correct most of these anomalies, for instance someone self employed and claiming to work 16 hours will be assumed to be working full time on minimum wage for the purposes of their claim. No more selling the big issue to get tax credits because it will be assumed you are earning £11830 unless you are earning more than that.

 

There's simply no evidence of widespread fraud. None at all.

 

If people are behaving within the rules it's not fraud. Similar arguments are often used to defend tax avoidance: no laws broken so no problem. Morally wrong as you suggest but legal....

 

What's wrong is the laws themselves and as you say a crackdown is coming.

 

I'll get sections of middle England on the streets. Tax credits are the more genteel face of benefits, and middle England won't like it when they get taken away. Same way they squealed over child benefit.

[chem1st]

Repeating a lie often enough doen't make it true.

 

But it makes idiots believe it.

 

The myth is highly successful, which is a massive worry.

 

---------- Post added 26-06-2015 at 01:42 ----------

 

In case you hadn't noticed we DO look after the sick, the disabled, the poor, the elderly... it's not like we've suddenly regressed to the Middle Ages when we used to drive them out of the village....

 

But not very well, and not as well as we have done before. There have also been numerous failures of the system and it is getting worse.

 

People are increasingly (a million) relying on charity to be fed, such are the scale of the failures.

 

We are regressing at the moment and very quickly. In case you hadn't noticed. hence my and others attitude.

[DnAuK]

..................The point being you can either live in a Marxist society where everyone gets what they need and everyone gives what they can, or a Capitalist society where everyone gets the basics and pays for any additions themselves. /QUOTE]

 

Why have you reduced the whole debate, world?, into a choice between the two extremes. It's not like that. We are a rich country and the way we collect and distribute revenue is up to us, we choose the priorities.

 

Unfortunately it's exactly like that. In this country you can choose to vote Labour and get more public services but pay higher taxes, or Tory and do the opposite. Clearly it's not quite so extreme but the principal is the same.

 

Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Marge runs for governor and wants to do everything that the crowd love. Then the other guy simply rubs his fingers together indicating it will cost them. Pretty much how the Tories won the last election.

[loraward]

There's simply no evidence of widespread fraud. None at all.

Which doesn't mean there isn't widespread fraud, it just means that the system is easy to defraud and the benefits department are unable of unwilling to look for it.

 

 

If people are behaving within the rules it's not fraud. Similar arguments are often used to defend tax avoidance: no laws broken so no problem. Morally wrong as you suggest but legal....

 

So Fraud.

 

Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain:

 

---------- Post added 26-06-2015 at 08:50 ----------

 

But it makes idiots believe it.

 

The myth is highly successful, which is a massive worry.

 

---------- Post added 26-06-2015 at 01:42 ----------

 

 

But not very well, and not as well as we have done before. There have also been numerous failures of the system and it is getting worse.

 

People are increasingly (a million) relying on charity to be fed, such are the scale of the failures.

 

We are regressing at the moment and very quickly. In case you hadn't noticed. hence my and others attitude.

 

An inevitable consequence of overpopulation, natural resource depletion and and an increasing number of people dependent on the kindness of others.

[Bob Arctor]

In case you hadn't noticed we DO look after the sick, the disabled, the poor, the elderly... it's not like we've suddenly regressed to the Middle Ages when we used to drive them out of the village....

 

The problem is that 'we' (the State) look after them a lot less than we did 7 years ago. I find it disappointing the lack of insight on this thread as to what the Independent Living Fund is.

 

It's not a benefit. It's money that was paid by central government as a top up to local council social care spending to the 11,000 most disabled people in the country. There has never been any suggestion that there is any fraud at all of the ILF. To qualify you had to have a full social care needs assessment in your local council and be found to need support over a certain amount, at which point the ILF would top up. Often an independent Social Worker would have to ratify the local council assessment.

 

The money is mainly used to pay people to help you do things like get out of bed, get washed, get dressed and leave the home. Also help you communicate if for example you are Deaf or have no ability to speak for some other reason.

 

The wheeze dreamed up by the Tories is not to say that the ILF is being cut, but 'devolved' to local councils. But those councils have had their central government funding slashed by up to 50% and are already cutting back on existing support packages, so they are not in a position at all to make up the extra that the loss of the ILF causes. I know someone who was getting 30 hours a week of practical support - now cut to 7 hours. No change in their needs, only in the budgets. People are being denied the opportunity to go to the toilet, for christ's sake, and are being made to wear incontinence pads and sit in their urine and faeces rather than be helped to go to the toilet.

 

Meanwhile Amazon paid £11.9 million in tax on £5.3 billion on UK sales in 2014. The ILF cost £320 million per year. 'We' can afford it; 'they' do not want to pay taxes so that 'we' can afford it.

[Anna B]

The problem is that 'we' (the State) look after them a lot less than we did 7 years ago. I find it disappointing the lack of insight on this thread as to what the Independent Living Fund is.

 

It's not a benefit. It's money that was paid by central government as a top up to local council social care spending to the 11,000 most disabled people in the country. There has never been any suggestion that there is any fraud at all of the ILF. To qualify you had to have a full social care needs assessment in your local council and be found to need support over a certain amount, at which point the ILF would top up. Often an independent Social Worker would have to ratify the local council assessment.

 

The money is mainly used to pay people to help you do things like get out of bed, get washed, get dressed and leave the home. Also help you communicate if for example you are Deaf or have no ability to speak for some other reason.

 

The wheeze dreamed up by the Tories is not to say that the ILF is being cut, but 'devolved' to local councils. But those councils have had their central government funding slashed by up to 50% and are already cutting back on existing support packages, so they are not in a position at all to make up the extra that the loss of the ILF causes. I know someone who was getting 30 hours a week of practical support - now cut to 7 hours. No change in their needs, only in the budgets. People are being denied the opportunity to go to the toilet, for christ's sake, and are being made to wear incontinence pads and sit in their urine and faeces rather than be helped to go to the toilet.

 

Meanwhile Amazon paid £11.9 million in tax on £5.3 billion on UK sales in 2014. The ILF cost £320 million per year. 'We' can afford it; 'they' do not want to pay taxes so that 'we' can afford it.

 

Excellent post.

[onewheeldave]

In case you hadn't noticed we DO look after the sick, the disabled, the poor, the elderly... it's not like we've suddenly regressed to the Middle Ages when we used to drive them out of the village....

 

Here's a link to a long list of people, mainly disabled, now dead, mainly through suicide, as a result of their treatment at the hands of our benefit systems.

 

http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2014/10/21/uk-welfare-reform-deaths-updated-list-october-21st-2014/

 

So no, we don't drive them out of the village, we drive them out of life, in their thousands- the vulnerable, ill weak and old, treated with such disrespect that they end their lives rather than endure it. And it's getting worse and worse, and will continue to do so, while, bizzarely, a huge portion of mainstream society believes we have an adequate set caring support systems in place.