Benefit cheats - what percentage?

[Pints]

Can anyone settle this office argument for me? What percentage of benefit payments, etc. are paid to benefit cheats?

Or in other words, if we could remove the workshy scum from the payments pool, by what percentage would we be able to reduce that part of the budget?

My heart can no longer cope with the tripe which is spouted by the office commie.

[oOTomOo]

100%...?

[speedchick]

I'd say around 90%, some people are genuine claimants, that are having to claim through no fault of their own.

[cal72]

I would say the high 80s, most of the chavs will be out to get as much as they can.

[Frankeh]

Technically they're not cheating though, are they? They're getting exactly what our stupid government think they deserve.
Only people claiming they have a disability to get higher benefits would be the cheats and I doubt that's a high percentage of benefit claimers.

Maybe 20% are embellishing a bit?

[Pints]

These are the figures I was expecting but do we have any sources? If someone finds a suitable link I'll happily print off a page and have it pinned to my desk. (Custard test on offer )

[Pints]

Frankeh said:

Technically they're not cheating though, are they? They're getting exactly what our stupid government think they deserve.
Only people claiming they have a disability to get higher benefits would be the cheats and I doubt that's a high percentage of benefit claimers.

Maybe 20% are embellishing a bit?

Embellishing is one thing, but claiming £100k a year and not working a day in your life is just taking the piss (see any given day's copy of The Wail for an example).

[Arese]

12%. Here's the link.

[VEA]

http://campaigns.dwp.gov.uk/campaigns/benefit-thie...

estimated 900Million from Public funds.

[Fume troll]

Benefits total £192 bn http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/b...

Fraud estimated at £1.5bn http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/2...

% Fraud = 0.078%

Or did you mean the total paid to cheats, rather than the % of the total that is fraudulently claimed?

Cheers,

FT.

[kambites]

I think there's two questions. How many people are actually fraudulently claiming benefits, and how many don't need the benefits that they can legitimately claim.

I think the answer to the former is tiny, I'd be surprised if it's over 1% of the total budget and probably significantly less.

The latter is impossible to quantify as it's too much down to personal opinion.


The other thing to bear in mind is that the claiming benefits is actually quite complicated. I'm pretty sure there are more people who don't claim benefits that they are entitled to, than who claim ones they aren't.

[otolith]

Frankeh said:

Technically they're not cheating though, are they? They're getting exactly what our stupid government think they deserve.

This ^^. Cheats are one thing, people gaming the system are another. You can sort the former by applying the existing rules more strictly and thoroughly, but the latter needs the rules to be changed.

Frankeh said:

Only people claiming they have a disability to get higher benefits would be the cheats and I doubt that's a high percentage of benefit claimers.

Maybe 20% are embellishing a bit?

Disability claims are one area - seems very inconsistent, I know people who were told they were entitled to nothing who seemed to me to be more disabled than others who were claiming everything going.

The other main areas, though, are people lying about their relationships (i.e. claiming as a single mum when in fact they have a live-in partner) and people lying about their income (cash-in-hand work).

[kambites]

otolith said:

... and people lying about their income (cash-in-hand work).

This is by no means unique to benefits. I'd imagine tax evasion costs the treasury significantly more than benefit fraud of this kind.

[Pints]

otolith said:

Frankeh said:

Technically they're not cheating though, are they? They're getting exactly what our stupid government think they deserve.

This ^^. Cheats are one thing, people gaming the system are another. You can sort the former by applying the existing rules more strictly and thoroughly, but the latter needs the rules to be changed.

Fair point. I suppose the same can be said for tax avoision (it's a word 'cos Kent Brockman said so) where the loopholes are being exploited. Close the loopholes, and legal yet unnecessary claims, and you could significantly reduce the country's benefit payments.

[Fume troll]

kambites said:

I think there's two questions. How many people are actually fraudulently claiming benefits, and how many don't need the benefits that they can legitimately claim.

I think the answer to the former is tiny, I'd be surprised if it's over 1% of the total budget and probably significantly less.

Yes, can't find original numbers but a number of sources say less than 1%, e.g. http://www.community-links.org/linksuk/?p=1697

Cheers,

FT.

[inman999]

As soon as any incumbent government tries to cuts benefits theres a huge outcry from seemingly all political angles of the media.

Who really needs a free TV licence FFS.

To the OP I'd image if you include all the people on job seekers that turn their noses up at certain jobs then the percentage would be a lot higher and more representative of the true figure.

[Fume troll]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'm all for seeing better data.

Cheers,

FT.

[kambites]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That is, in itself, not evidence that they are doing so. I've never seen a study that even implies that it's more than a fraction of a percent of the total benefit budget.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 20th October 15:09

[Eric Mc]

Define what you mean by "cheat"?

Do you mean those who are making false claims, providing false information etc?

Or do you include as "cheats" those who ARE eligible to claim but whom you personally don't think should be entitled to claim as a matter of principle?

[Pints]

Eric Mc said:

Define what you mean by "cheat"?

Do you mean those who are making false claims, providing false information etc?

Or do you include as "cheats" those who ARE eligible to claim but whom you personally don't think should be entitled to claim as a matter of principle?

As per the various comments above, it'd be interesting to know the split between the two. My original thoughts included, in all honesty, those who are able to work/contribute but don't.