DWP planning home visits to check benefits

[Maurice Picarda]

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),.

Please don't call me a liberal. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is precisely what I think, and that is because I am a social democrat and decidedly not a liberal. It's liberals who whine about draconian intrusion and ignore outcomes.

 

[_angel_]

That may have been local authority rather than DWP?

Yes, of course. The principle's the same. Oh! And they do it for council tenants, turn up, no warning, make you do a DNA sample (I'm only slightly joking here).

 

[ViolentPanda]

Will they have legal right of entry? Will there be a consequence i.e. sanction if you refuse them entry? If not then they can fuck off really, can't they.

Quite. No right of entry or no warrant, they can kiss my arse, and even with a warrant, they're only getting in if I let them (steel security gate over front door).

 

[ViolentPanda]

Please don't call me a liberal. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is precisely what I think, and that is because I am a social democrat and decidedly not a liberal. It's liberals who whine about draconian intrusion and ignore outcomes.

I didn't call you a liberal. I called you a wiberal, you wet middle class wiberal.

 

[existentialist]

I think, as ever, context is everything.

I don't think anyone could reasonably completely rule out the idea of a benefits department ever having the option of conducting home visits under certain circumstances: for the tiny minority of claimants who abuse the system, and to keep it to a tiny minority, some element of policing and even deterrence is necessary.

But the context of this particular announcement is a long, long series of other policy initiatives which, in practice - and in the face of repeated denials from DWP - operate to intimidate claimants and seem to be designed to discourage them from claiming what is legally their right to claim, via sanctions, skewed assessments, deliberate misleading of claimants as to their rights, jobcentre targets for sanctioning, Work Programme, the list goes on. Viewed through this lens - and why shouldn't we? - the idea of staff from a Government department already legendary for its oppressiveness having the right to turn up at your door as and when they consider it acceptable to do so, with - apparently - no right on the claimant's part to any kind of privacy.

We can deconstruct all this to its component parts, and make it look quite reasonable - and that is no doubt exactly what the DWP will do, in between banging on about "helping people into work". But, taking the broad view, this seems to me to be another significant step in the direction of completely dehumanising benefits claimants, and regarding them as simply not entitled to any privacy, freedom, or dignity. While I can accept that there may be a debate to be had as far as whether some of those need to be sacrificed to some degree in the name of maintaining the integrity of the benefits system, it needs to be a fair, and nuanced debate: it's not simply enough to say "if you want the Government to support you, then all bets are off when it comes to treating you like a human being". That's just wrong.

And, even if you leave the moral argument out of it, the harsh reality is that if you treat people like scum, they will respond accordingly. There is no better way of ensuring that your claimant community become disempowered, hopeless, resentful, bitter, lazy and criminal than by treating them as such. And I defy anyone to try and claim that the DWP is doing anything other than treating them as such.

 

[existentialist]

"Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is precisely what I think

Shame. I always thought you were more intelligent than that.

 

[ViolentPanda]

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.

And it's not as if the application process itself doesn't delve into your financial status, so for some office arsehole to "yea" or "nay" an application on the basis of a peep through the windows is indicative of how low the benefits Agency are happy to sink in their mission to protect the public purse from we vicious scrounging creatures.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

I didn't call you a liberal. I called you a wiberal, you wet middle class wiberal.

Is a dirigiste social democrat a wiberal, then, after Woy Jenkins? In that case I will wear the badge with pride.

 

[Greebo]

Please don't call me a liberal. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is precisely what I think <snip>

You'll be happy to provide all the paperwork pertaining to your tax returns then, on the doorstep or in your home, at short notice or none at all? You'll be happy to have to take a day off work and tell any adults within your household to do likewise? FYI I was out during one of the checks (a very urgent errand) and that caused the DWP person to raise doubts about me.

While we're at it, let's see some bedroom footage or at least let's have a listen to everything you say in private. After all, if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear...

 

[ViolentPanda]

They should have claimed money for proper curtains...

Pah! Mouldy blankets and plastic pinned over the window are good enough for us claimants! It's what we had when I were a lad, and it never did me no harm (twitch, shudder)!

 

[_angel_]

Still, vote labour to make all this increase twentyfold.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

While we're at it, let's see some bedroom footage or at least let's have a listen to everything you say in private. After all, if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear...

It's an open book. Would be terribly boring for the government agents, though.

 

[Greebo]

It's an open book. Would be terribly boring for the government agents, though.

And the paperwork? Come now, surely you keep it in order, going back at least six years, just in case it's ever checked?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

And the paperwork? Come now, surely you keep it in order, going back at least six years, just in case it's ever checked?

More or less, I have been in and out of self-assessment regimes for ten years or so.

 

[existentialist]

More or less, I have been in and out of self-assessment regimes for ten years or so.

So, basically, your attitude is "if it's not hard for me, anyone else should have to do it, too"?

Can you see the flaw in this argument?

 

[Greebo]

More or less, I have been in and out of self-assessment regimes for ten years or so.

This is possibly a bit too much information, but do you also starch your underpants?

 

[ViolentPanda]

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.

It's also significant that most of our mainstream Parliamentary politicians will decry that bit of casual work, while not acknowledging the part that "grey" and "black" labour play in the functioning of the economy.

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.

As I've said many times before, the last piece of research I read (from the mid-2000s, as the DWP have significantly tightened up data publication post-"credit crunch") reckoned on a "hardcore" of 80,000-120,000 "pisstakers" across the UK (a statistical rather than a concrete conclusion, obviously!). If we held that as accurate across benefits, then that's all of, what, 1.65% of total claimants actually taking the piss, and this is the blaggers we're talking about!

 

[existentialist]

It's also significant that most of our mainstream Parliamentary politicians will decry that bit of casual work, while not acknowledging the part that "grey" and "black" labour play in the functioning of the economy.



As I've said many times before, the last piece of research I read (from the mid-2000s, as the DWP have significantly tightened up data publication post-"credit crunch") reckoned on a "hardcore" of 80,000-120,000 "pisstakers" across the UK (a statistical rather than a concrete conclusion, obviously!). If we held that as accurate across benefits, then that's all of, what, 1.65% of total claimants actually taking the piss, and this is the blaggers we're talking about!

Also worth noting that these wheezes the DWP are regularly coming up with will differentially affect the hardcore blaggers a lot less than the more genuine claimants.

The serious blaggers will know what investigations are likely to come their way, and they'll be practically prepared as well as emotionally armoured up. The genuine claimant won't quite know what's going on, and won't necessarily know to get his ducks in a row in order to ensure that a suspicous (or malicious) DWP employee doesn't find a loophole to attack...and, of course, is going to be much more distressed and petrified by the whole situation anyway.

 

[Greebo]

Would somebody please remind me roughly how much benefit is underclaimed every year, compared to the amount overpaid (fraudulently or otherwise)?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

This is possibly a bit too much information, but do you also starch your underpants?

Of course not. I use an executive laundering and starching service.

 

[ViolentPanda]

you're already required to show proof of savings / 'capital' in respect of means tested benefits, and that means showing bank statements etc when you first claim and every so often when you renew.

and ultimately, if a benefit is dependent on having an income below X / savings below Y / not having a job, then is it entirely unreasonable for the system to check rather than take people's word for it?

although i'm inclined to think that most of the (few) people who have got an undeclared job would either do it cash in hand or have a bank account they make sure that the DWP etc don't find out about...

Mostof which I entirely agree with, except for the last sentence.
It's very difficult to have an "unknown" bank account in your own name, due to the fact of having to produce ID; ID where the serial numbers are listed on your application by the bank/building society/credit union.
It's even harder, as Johnny Punter, to have a "snide" bank account under an assumed name, as the same issues with the need to present ID apply.

Basically, you might be OK if your hooky account is 25-30 years old, and has been in use all that time, but otherwise the various anti money-laundering and anti-terrorism measures have put hooky accounts off the agenda.

it's Bank of Mattress all the way!

 

[fishfinger]

Would somebody please remind me roughly how much benefit is underclaimed every year, compared to the amount overpaid (fraudulently or otherwise)?

FRAUD VS UNDERCLAIMING
Created 09/01/2014
The government have launched a small pilot in 6 areas to highlight fraud. Methods include posters, newspaper adverts, Facebook adverts and letters to claimants – urging people to report suspected beneft fraud or changes to their circumstances.
Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud said 'It is only a small minority who commit fraud – but it costs the country over £1bn a year.' The 6 pilot locations are Southwark, Blackburn, Hounslow, Blackpool, Epping Forest and Cardiff.
Latest statistics show overpayments amount to £3.5 billion per year-
● £1.2 billion, of total beneft expenditure is overpaid due to fraud
● £1.6 billion, of total beneft expenditure is overpaid due to claimant error
● £0.7 billion, of total beneft expenditure is overpaid due to offcial error
However as part of ensuring that clients get their legal entitlement let's not forget that these fgures are dwarfed by the amount that is underclaimed each year just in means tested benefts- £16 Billion.

From here:

http://www.socialwelfaretraining.co.uk/news/fraud-vs-underclaiming

 

[Wilf]

Please don't call me a liberal. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is precisely what I think, and that is because I am a social democrat and decidedly not a liberal. It's liberals who whine about draconian intrusion and ignore outcomes.

I'm not a social democrat, but for anyone who claims it as a positive description you'd expect there was a commitment to certain things: reformism, minimising the rich/poor gap, using the welfare state to achieve such goals etc. Do you see these home visits - particularly in the context of the coaliton, sanctions on claimants, the bedroom tax, the cuts - as compatible with those 'social democratic' beliefs?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

I'm not a social democrat, but for anyone who claims it as a positive description you'd expect there was a commitment to certain things: reformism, minimising the rich/poor gap, using the welfare state to achieve such goals etc. Do you see these home visits - particularly in the context of the coaliton, sanctions on claimants, the bedroom tax, the cuts - as compatible with those 'social democratic' beliefs?

I see the home visits as absolutely compatible, yes. The wider context you've introduced mixes the specific (the bedroom tax - where the policy might make limited sense if the housing market wasn't like it is) and the very general concept of "cuts" (is all spend automatically good and justifiable? Of course not. Is the coalition going about spend reduction in a haphazard and doctrinally skewed manner? Of course), so it's quite a tall order to relate them all to the concept of social democracy.

Job guarantees are clearly a better mechanism than sanctions to achieve the same goal.

 

[ViolentPanda]

And do they have any right to ask any questions of anyone who does not admit to being the claimant?

No, they can't require you to answer, but I think it's obvious they'll put a coercive twist to their questions along the lines of "but if you don't co-operate, we'll have no option but to stop all benefits to this address" or some such pustulent arm-twist.

 

[Wilf]

I see the home visits as absolutely compatible, yes. The wider context you've introduced mixes the specific (the bedroom tax - where the policy might make limited sense if the housing market wasn't like it is) and the very general concept of "cuts" (is all spend automatically good and justifiable? Of course not. Is the coalition going about spend reduction in a haphazard and doctrinally skewed manner? Of course), so it's quite a tall order to relate them all to the concept of social democracy.

Job guarantees are clearly a better mechanism than sanctions to achieve the same goal.

We've been in an era of neoliberal restructuring since the 1970s - in both periods of economic expansion and crisis. FWIW, there hasn't actually been much social democracy around for a long time. All the specific policies I mentioned are part of that neoliberal restructuring. They might be incompetent, they might have unintended consequences, but they are also primarily ideological - and aimed at claimants. In that context it's a bit daft to present these home visits as neutral, nothing to be worried about, only aimed at 'the scrounger'.

 

[Chilli.s]

From here:

http://www.socialwelfaretraining.co.uk/news/fraud-vs-underclaiming

Fuck! ... £16 billion!

 

[fishfinger]

Fuck! ... £16 billion!

Yeah vs £3.5 billion overpayments - So £12.5 billion net

 

[Greebo]

<snip> http://www.socialwelfaretraining.co.uk/news/fraud-vs-underclaiming

Thanks - I thought it might be something like that.

You should have seen my father in law's face when he was told just how much people who can't face the forms or give up on a claim save the government every year. He's one of those natural conservatives who hates forms and doesn't believe in claiming what he doesn't need (even if entitled to it).

 

[ViolentPanda]

They have been doing this on and off for many years , there used to be the 'Benefit Integrity Project around 1990, but believe it or not protests by disabled people stopped that, shouldn't forget Blunkett wanted cameras installed in disabled people's homes, ostensibly for safety, but not really, its the holy grail for the state to have access to the persons home, it should be robustly challenged.

V/P should be able to add to this.

BIP was 1997-2000-ish, after the transition from Invalidity Benefit to Incapacity Benefit didn't yield the claimant reduction that was anticipated, but actually garnered more claimants.