Dla to be replaced by pip

d123

Brassedoff wrote: »

Sorry, but you are so far left of field as to being out of order. There are many claiming DLA who putting it simply are swinging the lead.

Are you sure about this? I'm sure I've seen it reported that DLA has the lowest rate of fraud of all benefits/allowances (see, to recall the rate as 0.5%).

Do you have any proof or links showing that many DLA claimants are fraudulent?

krisskross

d123 wrote: »

Are you sure about this? I'm sure I've seen it reported that DLA has the lowest rate of fraud of all benefits/allowances (see, to recall the rate as 0.5%).

Do you have any proof or links showing that many DLA claimants are fraudulent?

i think there must be fraudulent claiming.

I know someone who has been on high rate mobility for 16 years and has a motobility car. He has never had a medical, never sees a consultant or specialist and just fills in the odd declaration to say nothing has changed. He is a liar with better mobility than me, uses no aids, carries shopping etc and it is time this sort of claim was made to be proven.

Brassedoff

d123 wrote: »

Are you sure about this? I'm sure I've seen it reported that DLA has the lowest rate of fraud of all benefits/allowances (see, to recall the rate as 0.5%).

Do you have any proof or links showing that many DLA claimants are fraudulent?

Proof? There isn't? Glass backs, cannot face the world, kids with some condition that hides bad parenting or that they are little gits?

The above is not a generalisation. There is an overall majority that are genuine. Do you really beleive every claim is 100% genuine, if so, you are naive at best....

How many discontinue a claim when either questioned or caught who do not appear in the fraud stats? Anyone who reads or takes part in these boards and thinks every claim is 100% genuine are on another planet.

Below is an extract of a response following a FOI Act request made asking for figures of actual known fraud for ESA, JSA and DLA. The response tells you that they do not know :

The principle behind the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act is to give people rights to access information held by public authorities (unless it is exempt). However, that right to information must be balanced by the public authority's duty to deliver its front-line services. The Act allows for public authorities to decline to comply with requests for information on the grounds of cost where these requests would be particularly expensive.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information!Act allows public authorities to refuse to answer requests for information if the cost of complying would exceed the 'appropriate limit' prescribed in the Fees Regulations (SI 2004/3244). These regulations set out the appropriate limit for costs which for a central Government Department as £600.00, and allows that in considering this cost staff time will be taken as being £25.00 an hour. The cost is therefore £600 or 24 working hours of staff time, or any combination of the 2.

These regulations also allow that where the same person is making multiple requests in the same area i.e. to the Department of Work & Pensions about fraud matters, those requests are aggregated for costs purposes. As such separating your requests would not affect our decision regarding this.

Upon reviewing your request, I agree with the original decision maker that in this instance your request would cost more than the appropriate limit to answer, and therefore the Department is not obliged to answer it. For example in you last question asking for “How many fraud reports were proven as fraud, and of those, how many, as an absolute and a percentage, were against people who have declared a disability?” we do not keep central records which would allow us to answer this question. Beyond the fact that `proven' would need to be defined to allow for a quantifiable benchmark to record, the only way we could provide these details would be to manually check every single case and extract the information required. As you would be able to see on the link provided to you previously on fraud information, answering just this 1 question would involve checking thousands of cases which would therefore breach the cost limit. When looking at all of your questions we would actually breach the costs limit several times over.

Link http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/benefit_fraud_figureshttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/benefit_fraud_figures

However if you were to narrow down your request we may be able to identify what you want within the FoI cost limits. I would suggest that you examine the link we provided to you on your request, which is the information we collate centrally for statistical purposes, and identify what further information you wish taking into account that additional information may require manual checking of cases to obtain.

krisskross

WhiteHorse wrote: »

They like to sell the idea that benefits are some sort of charity, for which we, the peasantry, should be grateful. In reality, we pay taxes and National Insurance for these things.

No, it is an insurance scheme with no penalty for frequent claims etc. Everyone thinks they pay in such huge sums but just take a family claiming £30k a year in benefits for just 5 years.That is £150K. Very doubtful that that family will ever pay that sort of amount in tax and insurance in the whole of their working lives. And that is not taking into account the cost of medical care and education etc.

We are very aware that the 3 heart attacks and subsequent bypass surgery no doubt accounted for every penny my husband paid in his 45 year working life. We do however consider it extremely good value.

Like any insurance scheme NI relies on most of us not claiming. It will be unsustainable unless someone acts to check the huge amounts of people claiming quite large amounts of money for year after year.

For a start I believe that anyone claiming and receiving money for care needs should have to prove that the money is actually spent on the care they say they need.

Indie_Kid

krisskross wrote: »

He has never had a medical, never sees a consultant or specialist and just fills in the odd declaration to say nothing has changed.

Not unusual, tbh. I've never had a medical. I only see a consultant once a year. More if I need to. My brother claims it, has never had a medical and doesn't see a consultant either.

krisskross

sh1305 wrote: »

Not unusual, tbh. I've never had a medical. I only see a consultant once a year. More if I need to. My brother claims it, has never had a medical and doesn't see a consultant either.

Not right then is it? Every DLA claim should be backed up with medical evidence.

When my husband needed to claim on our travel insurance this year they wouldn't just take our word for it, they wanted incontrovertible facts and evidence. So why does a Government run insurance scheme not insist on proper evidence?

Indie_Kid

krisskross wrote: »

Not right then is it? Every DLA claim should be backed up with medical evidence.

When my husband needed to claim on our travel insurance this year they wouldn't just take our word for it, they wanted incontrovertible facts and evidence. So why does a Government run insurance scheme not insist on proper evidence?

But why waste everyone's time when there are some conditions that are incurable? I only see my consultants (excuse the pun) because I need treatment for torticollis and because I need reading aids. I have no other reason to see anyone. (apart from medication check-ups)

Brassedoff

d123 wrote: »

Are you sure about this? I'm sure I've seen it reported that DLA has the lowest rate of fraud of all benefits/allowances (see, to recall the rate as 0.5%).

Do you have any proof or links showing that many DLA claimants are fraudulent?

I forgot to mention that the report that you rely on (which I believe is the 2004 one) also shows 7.8% of all claims are overpaid to a claimant who no longer qualifies for DLA but "forgets" to tell the Dept. Now I don't know what you call it but forgetting to tell the DWP you are better is in my eyes fraud, theft or stealing. Add that stat to the 0.5% known fraud mean 1 in 10 claims are fraudulent. If you then take the amount of ESA claims discontinue on request of medical stats that have just come out, you can hopefully see that there must be a significant amount. Perhaps armed with this information the new Government have decided to check everyone as part of a clean sweep process?

hrafndot

Brassedoff wrote: »

Proof? There isn't? Glass backs, cannot face the world, kids with some condition that hides bad parenting or that they are little gits?

The above is not a generalisation. There is an overall majority that are genuine. Do you really beleive every claim is 100% genuine, if so, you are naive at best....

How many discontinue a claim when either questioned or caught who do not appear in the fraud stats? Anyone who reads or takes part in these boards and thinks every claim is 100% genuine are on another planet.

Below is an extract of a response following a FOI Act request made asking for figures of actual known fraud for ESA, JSA and DLA. The response tells you that they do not know :

The principle behind the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act is to give people rights to access information held by public authorities (unless it is exempt). However, that right to information must be balanced by the public authority's duty to deliver its front-line services. The Act allows for public authorities to decline to comply with requests for information on the grounds of cost where these requests would be particularly expensive.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information!Act allows public authorities to refuse to answer requests for information if the cost of complying would exceed the 'appropriate limit' prescribed in the Fees Regulations (SI 2004/3244). These regulations set out the appropriate limit for costs which for a central Government Department as £600.00, and allows that in considering this cost staff time will be taken as being £25.00 an hour. The cost is therefore £600 or 24 working hours of staff time, or any combination of the 2.

These regulations also allow that where the same person is making multiple requests in the same area i.e. to the Department of Work & Pensions about fraud matters, those requests are aggregated for costs purposes. As such separating your requests would not affect our decision regarding this.

Upon reviewing your request, I agree with the original decision maker that in this instance your request would cost more than the appropriate limit to answer, and therefore the Department is not obliged to answer it. For example in you last question asking for “How many fraud reports were proven as fraud, and of those, how many, as an absolute and a percentage, were against people who have declared a disability?” we do not keep central records which would allow us to answer this question. Beyond the fact that `proven' would need to be defined to allow for a quantifiable benchmark to record, the only way we could provide these details would be to manually check every single case and extract the information required. As you would be able to see on the link provided to you previously on fraud information, answering just this 1 question would involve checking thousands of cases which would therefore breach the cost limit. When looking at all of your questions we would actually breach the costs limit several times over.

Link http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/benefit_fraud_figureshttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/benefit_fraud_figures

However if you were to narrow down your request we may be able to identify what you want within the FoI cost limits. I would suggest that you examine the link we provided to you on your request, which is the information we collate centrally for statistical purposes, and identify what further information you wish taking into account that additional information may require manual checking of cases to obtain.

Further to this, you should not need to make a FOI request as their Annual Report and Accounts and Information Asset Register should give this financial data, they have to supply accounts to satisfy the Audit Commission (as was).

Maybe they were saying that it would be too expensive in person hours to point you in the right direction? Othewise if their accounts were not auditable they would lay themslves open to accusations of maladministration.

GlasweJen

I've never had a medical for DLA but I am aware that the DWP have contacted 2 of my consultants and my GP in the past, the last time I renewed they also asked the occupational therapist at work for a report.

I am constantly in and out of hospital, my medical records are so thick that doctors do a double take when they see me because they assume that i'm in my 70s with the sheer number of different departments involved in my care (and having the pacemaker doesn't help my cause either). It isn't fun having an obscure condition that affects almost every involuntary function that you can think of, it's worse that there's no treatment and it's diabolical that there is almost no support for someone like me who wants to do something other than vegetate on benefits and what dribble of support I currently get (less than £20 a week to make sure i'm supervised every time i leave the house :rotfl: ) is about to be decimated by the government.

At least i'm female, if the worst comes to worse i can spit out a kid to an unknown father and i'll be sorted for life.