DWP staff to be given powers of arrest for benefit fraud

[Pickman's model]

Another case - man makes an honest mistake (which the DWP admits, given the utter complexity of the form) DWP forces him to sell his home and takes £20k in 'benefit overpayments' from him. Won't return the money.

Carer convicted over benefit error worth 30p a week fights to clear his name

George Henderson had to sell his home to repay nearly £20,000, years after ticking wrong box on carer’s allowance form

www.theguardian.com

Tbh if the dwp know pretty much immediately when someone's overpaid and then leave it years to do something I'd have thought that would fall foul of the gdpr principles A guide to the data protection principles Wouldn't this give the dwp some liability for errors?

 

[equationgirl]

Tbh if the dwp know pretty much immediately when someone's overpaid and then leave it years to do something I'd have thought that would fall foul of the gdpr principles A guide to the data protection principles Wouldn't this give the dwp some liability for errors?

Without seeing the forms that the DWP ask claimants to fill out regarding their data, I would think it likely that some of those principles have been breached.

The decent thing would be to write off overpayments, pay back those forced to pay the DWP already and set out a framework for a) an amnesty and transition period and b) a new framework to manage alleged overpayments in a timely manner going forwards.

Key word is decent, of course...

 

[taperoo2k]

The decent thing to do would be to write off all debts, change the entitlement criteria so more carers can
get carers allowance and a recognition that without unpaid carers the social care system would have
crashed and burned a long time ago.

 

[two sheds]

I'd like to see the arseholes who put their name to the threatening letters pulled up for fraud, see how they like it for a couple of years before the case comes to court

 

[taperoo2k]

I'd like to see the arseholes who put their name to the threatening letters pulled up for fraud, see how they like it for a couple of years before the case comes to court

Not likely. Reeves husband is a civil servant who was the Director General of Finance at the DWP from 2018 till 2022.