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DWP planning home visits to check benefits

T

Theisticle

Well-Known Member
WTAF?!

You may get a visit from a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officer to check that your benefits payments are correct.

A Performance Measurement review officer may visit you if you’re claiming:

  • Employment and Support Allowance
  • Housing Benefit
  • Income Support
  • Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • Pension Credit
Your name is selected at random to be checked. You won’t always get a letter in advance telling you about the visit.

What to expect
The officer will interview you in your home and will want to see 2 forms of identification.

They’ll also ask to see documents about money, savings and rent, eg:

  • payslips
  • bank, building society or Post Office accounts
  • rent book or tenancy agreement
  • benefits and tax credit awards
Visits usually last up to an hour but may be longer.

You can reschedule your appointment if you need to.

Check their identity
You can check the identity of the Performance Measurement review officer by:

  • asking to see their photo identity card
  • calling the Business Support Team and giving the review officer’s name
Business Support Team
Telephone: 0191 216 8050
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm

https://www.gov.uk/dwp-visit
 
If you've applied for those benefits they've already had all the financial information they need. You have to supply original documents when making a claim, I believe.

The actual purpose of the visit is to ensure there's no-one else living in your home who could be making a financial contribution. They will most likely have been speaking to your neigbours before they knock on your door, too.
 
Theisticle said:
Fucking hell, evidently I do. This is more draconian bullshit from the DWP.
Click to expand...

I said "why do you?", not "why, do you?". it's not enough to cite Draco, who was an early codifier of law and as such rather a good egg (some of his sentencing was harsh, admittedly). But the onus is on you to explain what is so dreadful about residential entitlement assessment outreach.
 
Dunno really.

I am sure they (and council housing benefit departments) have done some home visits for years (and not always aiming at claimants either - some landlords have been known to give their imaginary friends tenancies and claim housing benefit on their behalf)

I'm not sure this is new.

I also don't think they do it all that often.
 
Obnoxiousness said:
I wonder how they are going to fund this exercise? It's going to cost them a lot of money.
Click to expand...

Presumably through savings found because people stop claiming as a result.

Why doesn't HMRC do this with businesses, too? Turn up on the doorstep, unannounced, and demand to see their books before they've had time to clean them with an accountant?

As with the DWP exercise, it's the threat of a visit as much as the actual feet on the ground that drive compliance.
 
This not new, I had home visits back in the 1980s when claiming unemployment and supplementary benefits. It was standard practice back then.
The current proposal is in line with the DWP's expectation that "everyone is a scrounger" to be checked up on and harassed.
 
Bitter&Twisted said:
If you've applied for those benefits they've already had all the financial information they need. You have to supply original documents when making a claim, I believe.

The actual purpose of the visit is to ensure there's no-one else living in your home who could be making a financial contribution. They will most likely have been speaking to your neigbours before they knock on your door, too.
Click to expand...

There might be an argument that this info may have changed since you made your claim, so they want to see, eg, an up to date bank statement. There's clearly no need for them to visit you at home for this purpose, however, far less pay a surprise visit, so I understand why you're suggesting an alternative, unstated reason.

But if they're visiting specifically to see documents, you don't need to let them in, you can get them to wait on the doorstep while you spend half an hour looking for them, only to discover that you can't find an up to date bank statement (or whatever).

This is a bad idea, in my opinion, because it's a complete waste of time and resources, and will only succeed in catching out the gullible and easily intimidated.
 
Maurice Picarda said:
I said "why do you?", not "why, do you?". it's not enough to cite Draco, who was an early codifier of law and as such rather a good egg (some of his sentencing was harsh, admittedly). But the onus is on you to explain what is so dreadful about residential entitlement assessment outreach.
Click to expand...

:hmm:

You seem very knowledgeable about the lingo. Is there something you'd like to share with us...?
 
they've been doing this for a while, i think its simply that the information about it has gone up on the gov website has caused a storm in a teacup
 
Years ago I worked with a couple who put in for a community care grant after moving to their first tenancy. In the meantime they'd borrowed things from friends and relatives. The grant was rejected and we had to appeal.

At the appeal meeting the benefits agency rep said how she'd been round to their house and because they weren't in had looked through the windows and determined that they already had things. She then went on to give a history of the social fund before telling them how 'loads of gays move to Manchester because it's advertised in magazines as a good place to be'.

That's the sort of people who'll be doing these spot checks.
 
Maurice Picarda said:
The same is true of television licence evasion folk, though, and they seem to be cost-effective.
Click to expand...

On what basis are they actually cost effective though?

I had umpteen letters threatening a TV license visit over a number of years, and when someone finally turned up, I said he was welcome to come in to see that I didn't have a TV, and he said the fact that I was happy to let him in was good enough for him and he wouldn't bother, but that I could expect more letters in the future...

Some people may be intimidated into buying a licence by the hypothetical threat, but there is no way of knowing how many and if it's cost effective.
 
Chip Barm said:
Years ago I worked with a couple who put in for a community care grant after moving to their first tenancy. In the meantime they'd borrowed things from friends and relatives. The grant was rejected and we had to appeal.

At the appeal meeting the benefits agency rep said how she'd been round to their house and because they weren't in had looked through the windows and determined that they already had things. She then went on to give a history of the social fund before telling them how 'loads of gays move to Manchester because it's advertised in magazines as a good place to be'.

That's the sort of people who'll be doing these spot checks.
Click to expand...

Really warms the cockles of the heart that, doesn't it. Jesus. :mad:
 
Chip Barm said:
Years ago I worked with a couple who put in for a community care grant after moving to their first tenancy. In the meantime they'd borrowed things from friends and relatives. The grant was rejected and we had to appeal.

At the appeal meeting the benefits agency rep said how she'd been round to their house and because they weren't in had looked through the windows and determined that they already had things. She then went on to give a history of the social fund before telling them how 'loads of gays move to Manchester because it's advertised in magazines as a good place to be'.

That's the sort of people who'll be doing these spot checks.
Click to expand...

They should have claimed money for proper curtains...
 
Maurice Picarda said:
Why doesn't HMRC do this with businesses, too? Turn up on the doorstep, unannounced, and demand to see their books before they've had time to clean them with an accountant?
Click to expand...

that.

and do more outreach exercises to see if people are claiming all the benefits they are entitled to.

ultimately, i've mixed feelings on this. I'm reasonably relaxed about people on the dole who manage to get the occasional day's casual work and not bother to declare it.

There is however a very small number of people who are already reasonably well off (e.g. the dodgy landlords i referred to, or people who have a well paying job / well paid partner that they manage to 'forget to' declare, or those - again a very very small number - who are blatantly faking a disability) who do take the piss in a big way. I'm a bit less relaxed about them, or that they (when they do get caught) help to stoke up the 'scroungers' narrative that many politicians and bits of the media are keen to publicise.

Although I find it hard to think of a way of getting the blatant piss-takers who are playing the system without intimidating people who are already vulnerable.
 
When there's a council worker doing a repair in your house (if you live in a council house, obvs) you're not supposed to be allowed to smoke as while they're there your home is a workplace. Would the same be true during a DWP visit?
 
When I lived in a terraced flat, to prevent people looking into the downstairs, I put privacy film on the windows. Better than blinds or net curtains.
 
andysays said:
On what basis are they actually cost effective though?

Some people may be intimidated into buying a licence by the hypothetical threat, but there is no way of knowing how many and if it's cost effective.
Click to expand...

Good question. But the BBC reckons that there is 5% license fee evasion, costing it £216m a year. Every 1% by which noncompliance grows, therefore, costs it £42m. The contract with Capita for collection costs £560 over eight years, so £70m per year. So if 50% of this activity is enforcement (which would be terribly high) it only needs to drive a tiny increase in compliance in order to cost in.
 
Frances Lengel said:
When there's a council worker doing a repair in your house (if you live in a council house, obvs) you're not supposed to be allowed to smoke as while they're there your home is a workplace. Would the same be true during a DWP visit?
Click to expand...

If you smoke while they're doing a visit they'd go away and argue that either you don't need all your benefits or you have an additional source of undeclared income ;)
 
Maurice Picarda said:
Good question. But the BBC reckons that there is 5% license fee evasion, costing it £216m a year. Every 1% by which noncompliance grows, therefore, costs it £42m. The contract with Capita for collection costs £560 over eight years, so £55m per year. So if 50% of this activity is enforcement (which would be terribly high) it only needs to drive a tiny increase in compliance in order to cost in.
Click to expand...

We're going off at a bit of a tangent here, but "the BBC reckon" does not seem like a totally solid basis on which to make calculations about cost effectiveness
 
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