Resting and relapsed at the moment.
DWP planning home visits to check benefits
- Thread starter Theisticle
- Start date
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Nylock
I hate 'these days'...
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
This is not new though, I was on the dole in the 80s & after 6mnths a car load of them came round, 2 men & a woman, to 'check my claim', which apparently they did with anybody who had been on the dole for over 6mnths. I recall they were slightly pushy & asked to come in. I let them in as I had nothing to hide. The bloke was telling me the usual shit & the other 2 were standing there swivelling their necks, looking for big colour TVs & music centres of which there were none & then left. In those days though there was a lot of claiming dole & working cash in hand & mostly you could get away with it if you were sensible. One dipstick got caught when he went in to sign on covered in dirt from a building site. After he signed on they followed him to the building site he was working on just around the corner.
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
A bloke I went to school with signed on for years while working cash in hand on a fruit and veg stall that was just round the corner from the Job Centre. He used to bring the staff tangerines when he came to sign on.
More likely they'll mark you as uncooperative and accuse you (worst case admittedly but they wouldn't be coming around otherwise) of fraud. At the very least refusing to open your door is itself an open door to a sanction.
muscovyduck
Good IT skills and food hygiene competent
Yet another reason why I just don't bother answering my door.
Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
Any thoughts Maurice Picarda ?
The suspension of payments is shocking and absolutely shouldn't be the first response to a minor change of circumstances. Wanting to get full information swiftly sounds reasonable, although the timing and wording of the second letter sounds a little off. So it sounds as if there are significant flaws in process and case management, which could leave people in serious financial trouble.
That's separate as an issue from the residential entitlement assessment outreach programme, though. And all Weeps says on this is that it's bad, because children. I don't really get this but I'm not going to argue the toss over it.
Is there a legal position on this? Are you obliged to answer the door to these people: they usually issue threats about 'your beneifts may be affected' - they aren't shy about this - but that'snot the case here.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/185667/response/457421/attach/3/reply 5456.pdf
Not sure if this applies to this latest scheme/idea.
source.
Not sure if this applies to this latest scheme/idea.
source.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
What does 'liberty fetishist' even mean anyway? Is a 'liberty fetishist' just someone who thinks that the poorest in society should have at least few of the same liberties as everyone else? Fuck it, why not just make it illegal for anyone claiming anything from the state to put up curtains? Nothing to hide and all that.
Funny how we can't make citizen visits unannounced to members of the political class, well maybe we can one day...
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
BIP was about wholesale reassessment of DLA claimants, this is about home visits to check your circumstances, as I and others have pointed out already, DWP has effectively always been able to do this to check claimants. Yes, it's very intrusive, yes, it's scary when the fuckers turn up, but will righteous indignation about government officials having the power to require people receiving services from the state allow people to object and refuse to such access? well, sadly in the current climate I doubt it. tbh, the continual maladministration that Fedayn mentions is probably more of a real problem for the vast majority of people and causes much more heartache and stress.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
sometimes they'll push a card through your door to say they called and for you to call them back.
however, i have heard of clients whose benefits have been suspended because they weren't in when they were called upon and the first they've known about it is when they check their bank/PO account and find nothing in it. when they've called DWP, they've been brazen about the fact that this has been done so that the person will contact them and agree to the visit to discuss their circumstances. again, that kind of maladministration is far more worrying than the simple fact of someone from DWP coming round and asking to see your tenancy agreement.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
The Tories, being economically illiterate, haven't considered the financial implications. The real reason for this, as anyone knows, is to further demonise and stigmatise benefit claimants. This is the kind of 'idea' that goes down well with their supporters.
Last edited:
The trouble is that it's frequently not just one benefit which is stopped - if your IS, JSA or ESA is stopped, your HB and CTB also stop. Once stopped, it can take months to get them restarted, by which time the landlord is losing patience and your credit record is wrecked.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
well exactly, but like i say, that's related to the administration of your claim more than the fact of the visit.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
They are both really, really bad - why do we have to choose one or the other to focus on?
Tell that to the stressed benefit claimant who now has one more bloody thing to deal with.
Merely the fact of having one of these people come to your door is more than bad enough - it's degrading.
Will the apologists for these home visits be equally happy if the HMRC drops in on them unannounced and demands to see all the relevant paperwork (relating to the last 6 years of tax) at such short notice?
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
what bit of they have always always always been able to home visit claimants don't you understand? since the days of National Assistance, the DWP/DSS/DHSS/etc have always always always had the power to do this. indeed, in the days of NA, every single claimant was visited at home, and often told they would get 2 weeks money and if they didn't like it, why not sell that armchair and your table until you get a job?
whereas the maladministration of claims affects literally hundreds of thousands of people every single month, causing people to go hungry, causing people to be at risk of losing their homes, causing people untold stress and adding to mental health problems, causing people to go into debt and use payday loans etc etc etc.
i know which i'm more concerned about, but hey, you jump up and down and shout at me about it....
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
What bit of both of these situations are completely unjust and cause the exact same problems in varying degrees do you not understand? True, I did not know that home visits went back that far, when I have been on JSA I have been lucky enough that it has been for short enough periods that I haven't been subjected to any of that and I am genuinely horrified to find out that it has happened albeit I knew that home visits were possible in some circumstances with the ATOS assessments.
Tbh I don't think you even have much of a point here, it's not as if we're using this discussion to allocate resources towards getting rid of either, you just come across as an argumentative contrarian. I have no idea why you are behaving as if people who are against these home visits are somehow in favour of people getting their benefits stopped since no one here is.
Tbh I don't think you even have much of a point here, it's not as if we're using this discussion to allocate resources towards getting rid of either, you just come across as an argumentative contrarian. I have no idea why you are behaving as if people who are against these home visits are somehow in favour of people getting their benefits stopped since no one here is.
Last edited:
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
because the serious problem is maladministration and artificial shit storms about something that affects very few people actually distract from an issue that is of far more importance to far more people in a far greater way, and in some respects, actually allows that problem to persist. further, if you're receiving money from the state, the state will give itself powers to check whether you should be getting that money.
for example, forget about them coming round your house, the DWP and HMRC now have data matching powers so that they can check all your credit records, your bank accounts, your mobile phone accounts, and so on and so on. this, home visits, is a distraction, pure and simple, and it gives people something to jump up and down about - it won't change anything, it won't help people getting the home visits, it won't prevent them. anyway, enough from me, i'm off.
Calm down.
Home visits have always been part of it, but the lack of notice and demanding to see all the relevant paperwork without notice hasn't been.
Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
That may have been local authority rather than DWP?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
They've been able to make home visits at 7 days notice for years. Greebo and I have been subject to several.
This is an attempt to regularise what has generally been a complaints-led investigative visit (i.e. some mug cunt reports you to the "Benefits Hotline") into a standard procedure.
It's clever, too. It plays just right with the wiberals (you know, the middle class mugs like Maurice Picarda who'll come out with their "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear" delusion), as well as playing to the shires as "tough on welfare dependency".
It's yetanother way to scare another few thousand people off of benefits, and make another few thousand new claimants throw away the forms and think "fuck that for a game of soldiers!". "Performance Measurement Review" is newspeak for "persecution of claimant".
Similar threads
- Poll
