https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG0uydng_k4 Black belt barrister has been posting for some time and I think he is professional. If Dwp cannot get assessments correct this new arrest / investigation power is going to be farce as many of the commenters point out especially for those with invisible disability. Many years ago the tribunal member said I was in getting Attendance allowance paid. I was 50 and it was my mothers… so they had looked into my bank account.
That seems an unbelievably naive piece. There is nothing to worry about. The rules will be scrupulously adhered to. No doubt under strict supervision by administrators with complete knowledge of the legislation and statutory instruments, which, unlike all previous legislation and statutory instruments will have no grey areas. Anyone remember partygate. That sounds to be DWP propoganda. I don't believe independent barristers give advice in such terms.
OK, maybe a bit of a political comment: the fellow in the video says this new program/action by DWP will save the British taxpayers 2Billion pounds. So what is the plan for those savings? Reports often say a very small percentage of people receiving social safety net funds are fraudsters. But, it's politically popular for governments to look like they're doing something worthwhile. Pick on the vulnerable, an easy target, and hey presto, "we saved the taxpayers oodles of money". And, meanwhile, if DWP manages to save 2Billion pounds, where is that money going to go? Same type of gambit happens here in Canada.
Fears over impact of DWP’s ‘horrific’ and ‘sinister’ anti-fraud plan "“Horrific” and “sinister” plans to give the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) sweeping new powers to investigate benefit claimants could have a serious impact on disabled people’s physical and mental health, activists have warned. Just as the social security cuts and reforms, and hostile rhetoric about claimants, of successive post-2010 Conservative-led governments led to countless deaths, physical harm and years of mental distress, disabled-led grassroots groups fear the new proposals – and the associated publicity defending them – could mirror that impact. The plans would see DWP civil servants given the power to carry out arrests and search people’s homes, while work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey also announced reviews into more than two million existing universal credit claims over the next five years. Many disabled claimants with fluctuating or invisible impairments say they already feel as if they live under suspicion, and fear being investigated by DWP or reported by neighbours to DWP’s benefit fraud hotline." https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...f-dwps-horrific-and-sinister-anti-fraud-plan/
What's even more amazing is that it's widely known that this form of excessive means-testing is more wasteful than just not caring too much about fraud because it's not worth it for most people so it happens rarely anyway. Going after the poor while allowing the rich to evade scrutiny says everything about priorities, and this happens everywhere. As in this is literally known not to save any money, all it does is punish people while costing more than recognizing that a baseline of fraud happens, just like everywhere.
