I have been waiting for this comment for such along time - I have worked hard all my life and found due to illness i lost my job and had to claim benifits - the DWP committed fraud against me i took this to a tribrunal and won, i thought every step of the way to get the benifits i was entitled to" and it still today makes me so angry that a goverment run department could and did commit fraud against me - after i won my tribrunal i still had a battle to get money that was owed to me and i had to battle to get help from staff that were abusive to me".. whilst still ill i managed to get back in to work with NO help from them what so ever.
Beacuse its them against me i thought who would belive me? even now who believes me? But what i do say to any one claiming benifit or is going to claim copy every piece of paper you sign and every form you fill in - if you sign anything read it first" do not trust them at all as this was the mistake i made.

they hung dick turpin for less than what these parasites have been getting away with for years, no wonder they tried to stop the making public of thier expenses.
they should ALL be named and shamed, made to pay back ALL the money and sacked.
like many other people on this site have said, they are not sorry for what they have done, they are only soory they have been caught.
legalised theft.

Tom
The government and other polititions are a disgrace, in any large company they would be sacked, even if no criminal charges were brought against them.
I wish I could make all my own rules on how to spend other people's money as I thought fit, and when any complaints were raised, say, but I worked to the rules, and didn't say they twisted them a bit. When these fiddlers made their own rules I dont remember being asked if the rules were OK seeing they were spending my money not their own.
Reading the current news, I think WOW some have agreed to pay back parts of there ill gotten gains, it begs the question, would they have even considered paying anything back if they had not been caught with their fingers in what they seem to think is a bottomless till, I DOUBT IT!. The speaker is also a disgrace, what he implise is, how dare any one criticise our fiddles, what is he hiding.
Honourable people, they do not know the meaning of the word, the most honourable are the one's whoit would seem were not milking the till, and whoever opened this can of worms deseves a medal.

Name & shame the MPs who are amongst the worst offenders,they make a mockery of our country with thier conduct,it makes me so sad there excuses the speaker of the house seems more interested in who lifted the lid on there money game,god help our coutry at this time,sack the lot of them. Briaan

How interesting!

Hi there, Christine!

In the West Midlands, Housing/Pol-Tax Benefit is not paid to the claimant, but direct. I also know that as a potential BTL landlord the local council rent for a single person is ca. £60/wk. In comparison they will pay "private" landlords over £90/wk, direct, oft for extremely sub-standard housing, for a single person. They oft pay much more for single parents in B & B, even hotels with full board.

On the question of a mortgage, the claimant only receives assistance with the mortgage after the first nine months of claim, by which time the claimant has normally been repossed & is therefore on the street. To me, it is plain common sense, that those with a mortgage have little or no savings, or other means of maintaining the mortgage, without income, for this 9 month period.

The question of how much is necessary to live, is a simple one. I sometimes receive £45/wk, with a notice that my benefit has been reduced by 60% due to a breakdown in communictions, & that I can obviously appeal against this decision as I should be receiving £80/wk, despite my normal payment only being £70. On such days my housing/poll-tax benefit is completely lost, & will be subject to a new claim, tribunal willing. On one occassion, I was left completely devoid of any & all benefit from 01/11/07 until 21/01/08, cuased by the issue of a new driving license by the DVLA. I then suffered not only the loss of the new, 2 month old license, without rhyme or reason, but also a 60% reduced benefit, & many eviction threats from he council landlord until the "urgent" tribunal 02/06/08. Despite over 40 years no claims bonus, my license appeal in front of the Magistrates failed 06/06/08, whithout which I have no hope of returning to employment, after 40 years as a Group 2, C/D + E Vehicle & Transport Technician. Even with NVQ (C & G) L2 in 8 IT subjects, I have no chance of beginning an admin/management career at my age.

There are a few misconceptions flying around here. Let's start with housing benefit. This is set at the rate of equivalent social (council) housing rates. Which probably doesn't cover the rent charged if you are in privately rented accommodation. Nowadays I believe that housing benefit is paid to the claimant not to the landlord so you are responsible for paying your rent and if you are short of funds it may be a temptation not to pay the rent. Also private landlords don't like taking DSS claimants as tenants. If you end up unable to pay your rent and are evicted, well no use applying to the council or local housing association because you have rent arrears which puts you down the bottom of the list till you have cleared them - oh and you have made yourself intentionally homeless because you have not paid your rent. Right then - been on the brink of that and know the ropes fairly well there from the past.

Secondly you can't claim housing benefit to cover a mortgage which of course is a nasty shock to those who have never had to jump through the hoops of claiming job seekers allowance.

Thirdly there is the definition of what is absolutely necessary for life. For some people in rural areas a car is needful to get anywhere whilst for others like me there is a bus service that works (sort of). Those people who are used to having both land line telephone for internet and a mobile for telephone calls will have a nasty shock - but both are not necessary. Neither is a television necessary - my children grew up without one and are normal, well balanced members of society. So yes you do have to make choices as to what you really, really need. You won't have a social life and you won't have most of the things that make life tolerable, sure you may have to shop in the charity shop and only buy the reduced food in the supermarket. Looking back, I'm not sure that my time on the dole counted as life. I was periodically hungry if there was an interview which cost me to travel to because it was within my travel to work area (a whole dodgy matter that), didn't get to buy clothes and had to keep one set for interview, never went out except to the local library and when I started work it was a good thing that it was a weekly wage paid a week in arrears or else things would have been desperate meeting the rent, council tax, water, food and bus travel.

I think that there are a whole new set of claimants now who expect more from the job centre because these are people who come from higher level posts and have higher expectations of the service offered by the state. Yes the job centre is stretched but it needs to be able to meet the needs of all claimants not just those who are dishonest or above the basic tasks of life.

I believe that the benefits system is dealing with people who are no longer willing to be doormats, who do wish to work and who have found that there are not jobs available at the moment. It's no shame to work at a lower category job than what you are used to doing if the money pays the bills but there is no point in working to run up debts.

I'll just quote a simple example of someone I used to work alongside about 18 months ago. Here is an older, ex HGV driver with all the licences whose back prevented him doing the driving job, who had retrained and got a degree as an IT systems technician and who had good experience till the company closed down. Now don't think that this was a slender young lad - this was a stocky older man who after a year was told he had to apply for any available job at the job centre - and made to apply for a job as a waitress to keep himself making the number of applications required to get his money. Now that is not exactly good for the claimant or the employer with the vacancy. Ho hum. Till we get rid of that sort of attitude at the job centre there will always be problems.

I see you've opened up another hornets nest Piper, lol!
Having been unemployed more than a couple of times in my life and having seen both types of claimants, (genuine ones who want to work and the ones who're just out for a free ride), all I can say is that some peoples comments are really insulting to the majority of unemployed people! Yes you're always going to get those who'll abuse the system, just as you'll always get those who'll steal from you, but in my experience most people on unemlpoyment benefits are desperate to work. These are the ones who struggle to feed their families and heat their homes despite various other benefits. The system is pretty much unworkable in that as long as there are dishonest people (which, like it or not, is a fact) it would be impossible to make it fair to everyone. I don't doubt for a second there'll be folks disagreeing with me but the fact is I've been there enough times to see it as it is!

Thanks for all your comments. I think the whole benefits system needs looking at. I agree it's hard to balance incentivising people to go back to work, and I'm well aware that there are people out there who live on benefits without any intention working. But many newly redundant workers have always worked and have no idea how to 'work the system'. And while years before they would only have been out of work for a few months, now they are long term unemployed because there simply isn't anything out there.

comment from fred what is wrong with working in supermarket.im a nursery nurse but at least my children know what work is .i will fill shelves till job becomes available

why should it be raised.what about families like mine neighbour gets the same as i do for her family from jsa and tax credits gets rent paid ,free school meals clothing grant .we get full rent pay school meals no help at all. im disabled as are my 2 sons sick of those on benefits saying we need more.dont mind for those made redundant recently but my neighour has never worked.

Colin, I think you are preaching to the wrong people. If you read everyone's comments you will notice virtually all been made redundant recently. i.e. we are not the spongers you are referring to. With regard to them, I agree with you. I am 45 and this is only the second time I have been in a Jobcentre. Have you stopped to consider that maybe the service you are being fleeced for is not up to the job of finding employment for the people like us that want to work?? It is almost like the Government looks at the fact you have worked before and decideds that you do not need any help to find a job as you will do it yourself. In normal times that might well be the case, but this isn't normal times. Unemployment is now rising at nearly 3500 people per day! A guy I worked with recently applied for a job only to be told 120 other people also applied - and this was a specialist career - architectual models. When I was at school I was taught you cannot fit a quart in a pint pot....but that is the situation we are in now. And remember, as more people lose their jobs, the burden will increase for those "lucky enough" to have jobs. This Government is going to find it very difficult to borrow more money. S&P is already looking at down-grading UK rating, which will make it harder - and more expensive - for the Government to borrow. In effect the Governemnt is falling into the trap all of us have found ourselves in - spending next weeks money to get through this week!

Having a 'benefits' system is just a method of population control, it makes people feel dependant on the government. Why else is so much public money spent on taking taxes from us just to hand it back in the form of government charity? I certainly don't object to being taxed, as long it is used to maintain and improve our already good quality of life.

Colin, finally someone who agrees with my opinion!

get a life have you never heard of being self sufficent, have you a garden, if so grow some of your own food, there are lots of ways to survive in this world without having handouts, problem is so many people have become reliant on someone else, how do you think people survived a hundred years ago? there certainly was not any handouts, scrub toilets if you have too, problem is you give more to people the complacent they become, i have been unemployed in the past, yet i survived on the money which was probably a lot less then it is today, this is not to mention all the benefits you receive when unemployed like dental treatment free, council tax paid, rent paid, free prescriptions, plus a lot of other benefits, do you want me too carry on, i for one have a job and i pay through the nose in taxes, i have children and watched the married mans allowance disappear and hey presto child tak benefits causing me to lose £130 a month, how about helping us tax payers too. never mind we don't matter do we!

i agree with mike slightly,,my hubby was out of work from nov to jan luckily mid jan was back in self employment it took them from 21st nov till23 dec to get his job seekers allowance for all five of us recieved =196.00 month we had to also pay part comunity charge of 46 oo out of it to and pay our 3o0.00 mortgage elec and gas.plus feed 2 dogs we had no savings . tv liecence, insurances,all which u have to pay by law.. what did we live on to eat?? pasta, cheap noodles and cheap chicken. thank god he got work..

Fred I weren't being funny with what I was saying. I was just having an opinion like everyone else who are commenting. To be perfectly honest, I believe until the economy picks up again people should get what ever jobs they can therefore earning a little more than jobseekers allowence, spend the extra money so that jobs can be created because there will be more demand which would increase GDP.

Any Government has to balance increasing the weekly amount with the encouragement this might give to people to stay on JSA. My suggestion would be to start paying £120/week for the first 3 or 6 months. Then cut it 25%,. Continue to do this every 3-6 months and the long-term unemployed are no longer incentivised to remain on JSA but at the same time it is much better for the real people the system was designed for - the likes of me, made redundant last eweek and busily trying to find another job ASAP. One of the beauties of this suggestion is longer term it would be self financing. Yes you get twice as much now, but in 12 months time you would be getting the equivalent of what you get now and in another 12 months you would be getting less than you get now. The desire to remain unemployed would decrease as your money does. Dave or McBruin can credit me when they introduce it. Mikef

ok laura, point taken, but what age are you? I'm almost past employing, apart from call centre and supermarket work. It is a whole new ball game for us Silver Surfers although I look about 10 years younger, I cannot falsify my CV nor my NI number. We had a huge mortgage and massive council tax bills in the UK. I was thinking about coming home on my own just to work, becoming a careworker but the problem is, the money wouldn't even pay my rent. Suggestions are gladly listened to, I cannot find a solution. My area in the UK is one of the worst hit by the recession.

Fred, I have actually been unemployed and I went handing CV's out everyday until I eventually got a job. Yeah it's not particularly something I want to do for the rest of my life but at least it's a start. Also don't jump to conclusions about people you don't know!