It has recently been revealed that the DWP (Department Of Work And Pension) has profited by almost £5 million in the last four years directly from fining unpaid carers £50 each when they’ve been found to have been overpaid.
This is as well as being in receipt of £400,000 in penalties which were paid by carers to avoid facing prosecution.
So it comes as no surprise that Carers that considered appealing against overpayments are then threatened with even higher bills if they do so.
Not a surprise to anyone that’s had any dealings with the DWP
In over half the overpayment cases the failure of the DWP to act when warned by an HRMC system that these carers were over the earnings limit. Basically the DWP made the choice to ignore the warning and let the overpayments increase to enable them to benefit financially.
However promises made by the DWP to MPs to rectify this five years ago were as usual an empty promise. They failed to do nothing except continue to enable carers to become in debt and threatened with fines if they appeal their cases.
There’s no limit to the level of underhanded tactics and deceit that the DWP will lower themselves to whilst trying to benefit financially from the suffering of others.
Carers should be respected and instead of fining them they should be given larger payments for the hard work that they do and not be targeted by the DWP especially given the fact that they save the government thousands of pounds, possibly millions each year.
We need to support or advocate for carers’ rights and raise awareness of the need for this.
Every now and then I get so angry when the government reveals new plans for disabled people I have to delay writing this blog. Today is one of those days.
I’ve been writing this blog for over 10 years now and since then it’s been an endless onslaught of changes to the social security system that willfully marganalises and causes an immense amount of suffering to those already struggling and in need.
No one chooses to be disabled and neither does anyone choose to become ill, it’s an awful situation to be in however the government clearly believes that they do.
The difference between the haves and have nots is becoming much bigger as each day progresses. For example if a Tory government minister or indeed a prime minister becomes ill they can afford to pay privately for the best care to recover or manage their situation. An everyday regular person cannot afford to do so.
Some people never fully recover from an illness because they can’t afford to access the care that they need and they manage the best that they can.
Imagine being such a vile, awful person that constantly attacks those in need whilst smiling at the same time… Well Rishi Sunak did just that in an interview on Radio 5 this morning April 19th 2024.
Sunaks clearly is not happy with doctors and consultants rightfully declaring that people are unfit to work. They do this having extremely good medical knowledge. They want the best for their patients.
Sunak plans to stop this and has declared that if his ideas come into fruition GPs will no longer be in charge of issuing sick notes. So basically a person with zero medical training will do so, most likely a DWP sadist that has no qualms doing this.
In the interview Sunak declared that claim Britain has a ‘sick note culture’ and people are being ‘unnecessarily’ written off work.
Sunak announced that there would be a review of the fit note system to reduce the number of people being declared not fit for work and that doctors shouldn’t be ‘over medicalising everyday challenges and worries of life’.
Reading this you’d have thought that he has had some medical training to come to this decision but he hasn’t. He probably sat in a meeting with colleagues discussing how they can continue to hurl more punishment to already marginalized people afterall they regard disabled and ill people as ‘useless eaters’
He most likely sees this as a vote winner and back in the day it probably would have been, but people have clearly had enough of this now. There’s only so many times you can kick a person whilst they’re down without some retaliation.
And people will definitely rebel against these evil plans. I can bet there’s more in disgust at these plans than think they’re a good idea.
The ‘scrounger against scrounger’ way to manipulate the public isn’t working as well as it was before. Many of those that had this view now find themselves at the recieving end of it now
A Lot more people can see right through it and thank god they can.
What Sunak needs to do is to acknowledge that nobody chooses to be disabled and ill, it can literally happen to anyone at any time. He won’t and he never will.
His kind hates working class people especially those that are disabled.
One thing that I do know is that if you think these plans are dreadful they’ll become a whole lot worse if they win the next general election. Let’s vote them out.
And so the DWP cruelty continues and we shouldn’t be surprised.
Unpaid carers have been told by the DWP (Department Of Work And Pensions) to repay thousands of pounds of benefits after unknowingly earning too much money years ago.
Not only is this cruel it was entirely preventable if the DWP had done their jobs correctly. But forcing unpaid to pay back thousands is unbelievable especially when they save the government millions every year.
The DWP system shows when carers have gone over the earnings limit but they failed to inform claimants instead allowing their claims to continue for months or even years before recovering the full amount owed.
This has also been highlighted in a series of articles by Patrick Butler in The Guardian which shows exposing the cruelty in how they treat unpaid carers
Along with this the folks over at Benefits And Work have raised the reasons why the DWP should never get the police powers they desperately want.
This also proves why the DWP should never be given police powers.
This has resulted in the DWP given free reign to threaten carers with jail terms. They have also used laws that were designed to strip drug dealers of their property to take money from carers.
The DEP have unlawfully ignored judges legal directions in order to increase the amount they can take back from carers.
The DWP have been shown to misleed MPs for years by promising that new technology meant large overpayments would no longer happen.
Alongside this they are refusing to publish a report on the effects of overpayment recovery on carers which was completed years ago.
Take for example the heart breaking case of Vivienne Groom who cared for her elderly mother who had dementia and suffered from a stroke is a disturbing example of how the DWP treat carers.
Vivienne was given incorrect advice from a social worker that she didn’t need to declare her part-time minimum wage at the Co-Op job to the DWP whilst still receiving carers allowance.
When her hours increased she did inform the DWP, who said they would get back to her.
Unsurprisingly they never did reply to her.
Years later she was threatened with prosecution and began repaying the overpayment at £30 a month.
This is a large amount of money for her to replay each month but she did so.
Her mother sadly died and left her a £16,000 inheritance. The DWP went on to prosecute Vivienne using the Proceeds of Crime Act.
This was created to take expensive cars and large houses from drug dealers, not people who have cared for loved ones
They also threatened her with up to seven years in prison in order to steal her inheritance.
Vivienne decided to take legal action and was refused legal aid because she had £16,000 in capital even though she couldn’t access it because the DWP had her account frozen the day the money went into her bank account.
The case ended with the DWP legal team ignoring judges directions on three separate occasions to make calculations that may have reduced the amount Vivienne owed and, instead, getting the whole of her inheritance.
It’s extremely disturbing that the possibility that a vengeful organisation as is the DWP could be given the power to search claimants homes, seize their possessions and prosecute them or impose fines upon them must be challenged whenever it is raised.
As proven time after time the DWP will ignore a judges ruling and will appeal any decisions made in a court of law.
It’s wrong, beyond cruel . The government should be thanking unpaid carers for the work that they do because ultimately they save the government millions of pounds each year.
It’s our job to challenge this whenever possible and share articles to raise awareness because believe it or not there are people that aren’t aware that this does and will continue to happen.
A huge thank you to Patrick Butler for his hard work in producing these interviews
Jobcentres have given claimants referrals food banks for many years and on the whole it’s worked quite well. It’s helped possibly millions of people throughout the years.
This referral comes in the form of a referral slip which contains some personal details about the claimants for example if they have children and any other essential details.
Some food banks will only accept people if they’ve been referred by outside organisations such as the DWP, social services and so on.
For no apparent reason the DWP aren’t happy with handing out food bank referrals stating that it’s and have decided that it’s now an “inappropriate use of personal claimant data” and referrals need to be stopped.
Thousands of claimants rely upon these referrals and often request them when they’ve had their benefits sanctioned or are waiting weeks for their first benefit payment, they’ve literally kept people alive as they are unable to buy food.
The DWP have decided that claimants now have to approach another agency, such as their doctor, housing association, social worker to obtain a food bank referral.
This then automatically puts another barrier to receiving much needed food from a food bank.
I dont for one minute believe the DWP’s data protection argument is valid, after all they don’t have a problem with sharing claimants details to other organisations and agencies that work alongside them. Nor do they respect a claimants privacy when they’re looking up a claimants details and activities on social media etc.
That’s apparently ok.
Contrary to the DWPS depiction of claimants they are intelligent enough to read the contents of the slip and realise that they will be handing over their personal details. to food banks, it’s ridiculous to think otherwise.
However the real reason that the DWP don’t want food banks to be able to publish their statistics showing that massive amounts of claimants are being forced to access food banks
This is as a direct result of the benefits system completely failing claimants and pushing them further into poverty.
Unbelievable aren’t they willing to put a claimants basic human rights at risk in order to save themselves and hide essential details.
Their benefits systems were created to make people suffer afterall how dare they ask for help.
How can you tell if the DWP lying? When they deny something but then also allow it at the same time….Here we have an example of their hypocrisy and they never fail to disappoint do they.
The team over at Benefits and Work submitted a freedom of information request asking the DWP if they are paying bonuses for detecting benefit fraud and if staff have to reach targets for criminal prosecutions. Rather predictably they denied both in a statement given in response to the FOI;
“The DWP does not operate any bonus or incentive schemes aimed specifically at staff who are involved in detecting and investigating benefit fraud and overpayment cases. There are also no targets for Investigators to achieve a prescribed number of criminal outcomes.”
Adding:
“I can confirm that DWP operates an in-year reward and recognition scheme for all DWP teams and Individuals to be recognised for displaying exemplary behaviours or making a significant contribution to team performance. This applies to all colleagues across DWP.”
Their response does appear to rule out that there is a formal bonus system for detecting fraud or recovering money. But it does not rule out the possibility that teams or individuals can receive rewards for recovering large amounts of money for the DWP or prosecuting large numbers of claimants.
We await further details of this.
However we are wise to their lying ways, knowing that if they can get away with doing something by simply changing the wording they will.
It is not acceptable in any way shape or form to issue bonuses or rewards for targets such as these. They create a system when a bonus or reward becomes more important than the wellbeing of already vulnerable claimants. They lead to false accusations, sanctions based upon lies knowing at the same time that many are unable to challenge their decision because they’re not strong enough to do so.
As we know the DWP are pushing a bill which will give them access to approximately nine million claimants bank accounts through parliament.
They are already pushing for additional powers of arrest, search and seizure additional to having access to bank accounts and it’s a scary thought.
If they are successful with their aims the DWP will therefore have its own anti-fraud police force. With this they could also be able to impose huge fines without going to court.
This is extremely worrying considering if they are successful they won’t have any real accountability by anyone but themselves and we know what that means.
By default the accountability given to their actions will be very low if any at all. Yes they make claimants follow their rules when they often don’t follow them themselves.
Whilst this legislation hasn’t been given to the DWP yet it’s vital to be aware that this could happen and to prepare for it if it happens.
Keeping good records of everything that you do and have done. Double check everything and keep everything safe.
Please note this hasn’t happened yet so don’t worry and I will be sharing more about this and what you can do as and when more information comes out.such immense powers does appear,
Please don’t panic this hasn’t happened yet and it might not go through parliament yet and I’ll keep you updated.
I hope you all enjoy the festive period even though I know it’s tough for so many of us.
Here over at The Poor Side Of Life HQ it’s going to be a quiet one, to be honest I’m not really celebrating it.
Of course I’ll make sure that my daughter enjoys Christmas but as a single parent and having no family etc to celebrate with it’ll be quiet.
I’m going to take the time to reflect and maybe get some rest, it’ll be a welcome change.
Don’t feel pressured into celebrating Christmas if you don’t want to. Christmas is a tough time for so many of us, remembering times past and people long gone.
I’m here if you’re on your own and want to chat.
A huge thanks to everyone that reads and shares my blog posts it really does mean the world to me.
And as for the Tories they can get to feck. I have zero time for them.
It seems from years of experience in such matters that the DWP like nothing more than handing out sanctions during the festive period.
If that isn’t bad enough their reasoning for sanctioning people is mostly totally unreasonable, giving claimants targets that they can’t reach.
In my eyes sanctioning a person is the cruelest thing to do to a claimant. No regard is given as to the health and wellbeing of them either, once the decision is made by their DWP work coach and sent off for approval it’s down to the claimant to appeal the sanction.
Appealing a decision to sanction isn’t easy, it’s difficult and directly impacts their mental and physical health and a direct correlation between the two can be found. Please see my previous blog posts.
Here are some examples of the reasons why claimants have been sanctioned. It’s gaslighting at its worst but hey the DWP has targets to reach.
I’ve helped many people with sanction decisions. You might think that these are made up but they aren’t they’re the real deal.
Sanctioned because claimants father had just died.
Sanctioned because a claimants father had just passed away half an hour before the signing on appointment.
They phoned their advisor up and were told that they had to attend their appointment. The claimant was waiting for the doctor to certify the death.
Sanctioned because their baby died.
A claimant sanctioned because they couldn’t attend their appointment due to their baby dying. They asked their work coach if they could rearrange their appointment but was refused. Instead they were told to bring the death certificate in to prove it.
Sanctioned because a work coach made a mistake.
Sanctioned because a work coach made a mistake in their records for an upcoming appointment. Luckily the claimant had kept the proof on their appointment which was given on an appointment card showing the time and date that they were given to attend
The case of the missing letters
Here’s a very common reason for sanctioning people.
Sanctioned for not attending an appointment that they had supposedly been sent a letter for.
The letter was never sent.
The onus is on them to prove that the claimant recieved it. They couldn’t because they didn’t. Watch out for this one folks
Sanctioned for attending a job interview.
Sanctioned for attending a a job interview at the same time as a signing on appointment.
They requested that their appointment be changed so they could attend their interview but their advisor refused.
Important to know that they’d also sanctioned for not attending their interview.
It’s a catch22 a no win situation except for the DWP
Any reputable organisation would not threaten to sanction or indeed sanction people for the above reasons. They’d actually care about the people that they help.
The DWP do neither, they don’t even care for their staff and it’s scandalous that they’re allowed to get away with this.
As I’ve previously posted sanctioned rates are rapidly increasing.
It’s important to remember that sanction decisions can be appealed and you must do this.
A huge thank you to everyone for reading and sharing my blog posts. You make a huge difference when you do this and I can’t thank you enough.
Please share my blog posts it does help lots!
Like you I’m struggling to manage everything, I was hoping to be able to turn my heating on for a few hours on Christmas day for my daughter but that’s impossible now. Nor will I be able to provide a decent Christmas dinner.
If you can afford to and would like to donate to keep my blog going and myself there’s a donate button at the top and side of this blog post.
After writing last week’s blog their cruel plans were confirmed and I fear it’ll be worse than I initially thought.
Please read my previous blog post for more details.
I’m angry, well I’m beyond angry and I’m scared for every single person that will be affected by these proposed changes myself included.
I wrote this on X, formally known as Twitter, #autumnbudget #budget social murder by design.
Honestly I don’t believe I’m wrong about this I wish I was. I couldn’t publish my blog yesterday because I was finding the enormity of this too much. I went from anger to worry and back to anger.
I can imagine you doing the same.
Let’s be honest it’s already horrendously difficult for disabled and unemployed people. If they don’t appear to satisfy their overlords the DWP potentially could be sanctioned or worse.
Disabled people being diagnosed as ‘fit’ for work by medical professionals not qualified to do so which causes immense distress and often a decline in their health.
The government’s proposal to take claimant’s ability to access medication and other benefits will undoubtedly cause many deaths. No one takes medication when it isn’t needed and it’s essential to their well- being.
It’s horrifically cruel but I don’t need to tell you that.
They shouldn’t be forced into jobs when they’re not fit for work and employers shouldn’t be expected to employ people that can’t do the work in the first place.
They also proposed that disabled people can work from home for telephone work and suchlike.
Not every disability is visible and not everyone can do this work. It would cause them great distress and physically and mentally they can’t do it.
Of course they suggest this under the assumption that everyone has access to the internet at home already having everything they need to do this work. You can bet the DWP won’t offer them any support either.
It’s important to remember that these changes will not affect existing claims and will only affect new claims. However they will be moved to the new regime in 2025.
Am I still angry? Yes I am because they’re literally handing a death sentence to the most vulnerable people and they can never be forgiven for this.
Well it appears that the DWP have been busy conducting a survey about the concerning list of proposed new powers they’re wanting to implement.
These include:
Trained DWP investigators having arrest powers
Trained DWP investigators having search and seizure powers
Collecting information about where claimants are spending money
Apparently the DWP research findings reveal that a majority of the public questioned were in favour of every one of these measures being introduced.
Combine this with the constant failing of the DWP system, it’s dire incompetence, lack of any unaccountability and data leaks the very suggestion that staff could arrest claimants and seize their possessions is likely to worry and cause distress for thousands of people.
The draconian suggestion that the DWP could start looking at how claimants spend their money is also going to cause distress.
George Orwell wasn’t wrong was he.
This week the first King’s Speech promised proposals to “reform welfare and support more people into work” whilst giving no details of how they’re going to do this.
It makes me wonder if the above are included in these supposed reforms but I hope they aren’t.
I’d like to question the legality of their proposed plans, is it within the law for the DWP to access claimants bank accounts without permission? Would that in itself be a serious data leak?
If this is allowed will people be sanctioned for spending their money on what the DWP could regard as being ‘wrong’, will they have a list of items that claimants won’t be allowed to purchase?
I’d like to see these proposals being challenged by those that can do this.
It’s hard enough having to live whilst claiming social security, the cost of living and rising energy costs have made everyday living much harder.
Every day more people are forced to access foodbanks for help because they can’t afford to eat.
Winter is also on it’s way and it’s pretty cold where I live, this will result in more people forced to live in cold damp homes
Having a decent quality of life has become a long forgotten thing, a dream of the past and we deserve so much more than this.
The sooner this corrupt government is out of power the better because the public can’t take much more.
Thanks to Benefit And Work for their original reporting of this.
The poor side of life 