Anonymous tip-off - how anonymous is it??

Mersey_2

Glen_Clark wrote: »

I can tell you the biggest housing benefit scam of all. The Royal Apartments. Palatial apartments in prime locations that supposedly belong to we the taxpayer, let out to royal hangers on for token rents like a pound a year.
Do you think the DWP would investigate them?

The Crown actually produces a profit for HM Treasury though.


You have a point re when John Prescott and his missus et al had that grace and favour apartment in central London just so that she could go shopping when he was Deputy PM.


But the houses that go with being PM, Defence & Home Sec are needed to host foreign leaders & also for security reasons.


If you want to complain about receiving £ for doing nothing, the only politicians that literally applies to is Cllrs. By law the minimum they have to do is to attend 1 full Council meeting every 6 months to receive eg £1k pcm.

dippy3103

rockingbilly wrote: »

Any sort of surveillance would have thrown up the fact that the person concerned walked round an 18 hole golf course three times a week every week pulling his clubs. I've only been round a 9 hole course before I became ill and that was a marathon - so I can imagine what goes on for an 18 hole course.
Still the DWP did take notice but in so far as to ask him if he still had problems walking, and what medication he was on. Based on those answers they ignored the complaint.
Mind you it did work to some extent - he was rattled enough to stop his golfing trips and stayed at home instead. - some good came out of it.

RIPA requires that all surveillance is authorised. There are no half measures

Glen_Clark

Mersey wrote: »

You have a point re when John Prescott and his missus et al had that grace and favour apartment in central London just so that she could go shopping when he was Deputy PM.

Prescott was singled out because he was a Labour politician, but there are far bigger parasites in places like Windsor etc.
The Crown only makes a 'profit' because so much public revenue from all sorts of obscure places is paid to it. We have to pay her a levy on all the sand and gravel we dredge from offshore for example.

rockingbilly

Mersey wrote: »

If you want to complain about receiving £ for doing nothing, the only politicians that literally applies to is Cllrs. By law the minimum they have to do is to attend 1 full Council meeting every 6 months to receive eg £1k pcm.

May I suggest that you get your facts straight.
Most if not all Councillors don't get paid for the work they do. Some however may get expenses. All of our town councillors gave up the right to even claim expenses a few years back. They work on the basis that every £ that they are allowed is a £ extra that the council taxpayers have to pay. They even have to supply their own paper and ink for their own printers as well as fuel for their private cars when seeing residents, attending civic functions as well as council and committee meetings.
But yes you are right they only need attend 1 full council meeting in 6 months. Those that do that are few and far between.

rockingbilly

dippy3103 wrote: »

RIPA requires that all surveillance is authorised. There are no half measures

Of course it is!

rockingbilly

Glen_Clark wrote: »

We have to pay her a levy on all the sand and gravel we dredge from offshore for example.

Well somebody owns it.

I would imagine that if you owned a few miles of our shoreline and someone wanted your sand you would charge them for it - so why make the Crown any different?

Mersey_2

rockingbilly wrote: »

May I suggest that you get your facts straight.
Most if not all Councillors don't get paid for the work they do. Some however may get expenses. All of our town councillors gave up the right to even claim expenses a few years back. They work on the basis that every £ that they are allowed is a £ extra that the council taxpayers have to pay. They even have to supply their own paper and ink for their own printers as well as fuel for their private cars when seeing residents, attending civic functions as well as council and committee meetings.
But yes you are right they only need attend 1 full council meeting in 6 months. Those that do that are few and far between.

Your final sentence is correct but your second sentence ("most if not all Cllrs don't get paid") is plainly wrong.


Unless you are talking about parish cllrs who have little powers.


All metropolitan, county and district cllrs receive a statutory figure pa. On top of this they can claim expenses for travel, parking and so on.


The £12k pa figure I referred to is in fact only the average for backbench Cllrs in Mets (Liverpool City, Sefton MBC etc. It's far higher in Birmingham for example). On top of these they also receive a free laptop each and gym membership in my area.


The average Cllr actually received £15k pa from the public purse in 2015 (the mean average is higher due to the fact that Leaders, Group Leaders, Whips and so on receive additional sums).



Indeed it is why 20% of Cllrs - of working age - do not work as they can afford to live from their allowance and expenses.

Although I concede real troughing - the infamous ex Sefton Cllr Sir Ron Watson who 'earned' £120k pa in remuneration from the public bodies he was appointed to as a Cllr - is a small minority.


The only difference today - as opposed to the above case which required a journalist to make FOI requests - is that we can now all look up how much they each receive online - even if some councils were reluctant to comply with this recent requirement. eg Liverpool's 90 City Cllrs & City Mayor cost taxpayers £1.3m pa.


It's good to hear your parish council is cost effective, but I am not surprised that you were unaware how much most Cllrs receive. [A survey last year showed only 12% of the UK public realised]

FBaby

Single mother claiming housing benefit then her new boyfriend moves in. They are very careful not to leave a paper trail, he's not on the electoral register there, no bills in his name, no post and whatever else. In those circumstances it must be very difficult and resource heavy to build a case.

There was a programme on this a few years back. It followed a council office day to day life, and one aspect of it was investigating cases of fraud. What I remember is them explaining how difficult it was to bring someone to judgmental, how any tiny aspect of their investigation was scutinized, looking for errors to throw the whole claim out. They explained that to take someone to court, they had to carry out a lengthy and thorough investigation, making sure they didn't break any rules that could be challenged, and unfortunately, these investigations took a lot of resources and therefore money. It was therefore only worth taking forward when the case was strong to start with.

They were showing how they reviewed each potential fraud case and decided on which one to take forward. It wasn't forcibly the most obvious case of fraud, it was the most straight forward to prove. They followed one of the lead investigator through their journey up to court, and it was incredible how nervous they were because they knew that it would take nothing to have all their hard work and dedication thrown in just a few minutes.

This programme really opened my eyes to the whole process, and made it clear that statistic on fraud was only the tip of the iceberg, especially as claimants are becoming wiser to the ways to operate to avoid the evidence that would be required in court.

dippy3103

rockingbilly wrote: »

Of course it is!

Of course what is?

ctbfc

FBaby wrote: »

There was a programme on this a few years back. It followed a council office day to day life, and one aspect of it was investigating cases of fraud. What I remember is them explaining how difficult it was to bring someone to judgmental, how any tiny aspect of their investigation was scutinized, looking for errors to throw the whole claim out. They explained that to take someone to court, they had to carry out a lengthy and thorough investigation, making sure they didn't break any rules that could be challenged, and unfortunately, these investigations took a lot of resources and therefore money. It was therefore only worth taking forward when the case was strong to start with.

They were showing how they reviewed each potential fraud case and decided on which one to take forward. It wasn't forcibly the most obvious case of fraud, it was the most straight forward to prove. They followed one of the lead investigator through their journey up to court, and it was incredible how nervous they were because they knew that it would take nothing to have all their hard work and dedication thrown in just a few minutes.

This programme really opened my eyes to the whole process, and made it clear that statistic on fraud was only the tip of the iceberg, especially as claimants are becoming wiser to the ways to operate to avoid the evidence that would be required in court.

Interesting, thanks. Sort of backs up my suspicions really. Effectively those who are careful won't get caught - especially with council budgets being cut to the bone.