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We’re all crooks now
At least that’s what the DWP are claiming in their annual report - National Audit Office qualifies opinion on DWP accounts for 36th year running due to level of fraud and error in benefit expenditure
Amongst the gems buried away in this report are that:
1) There is a long-term increasing trend in levels of fraud against organisations.
Data for fraud offences against businesses referred to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau by Cifas (who facilitate fraud data-sharing for over 600 large public and private UK organisations) shows a rise in fraud cases against organisations over the past decade
2) There is a notable uptick in shoplifting, which may suggest an increasing motivation to commit fraud/crime in order to ease financial pressure.
According to police-recorded crime data for England and Wales, reported levels of shoplifting have steadily increased since retail reopened after the pandemic. Annual levels of shoplifting have increased by an average of 27% since 2021, and the 2023 level is 11% higher than the pre-pandemic level in 2019. Shoplifting reached a record high in April 2024.
3) Attitudes toward benefit fraud have softened.
Results from the British Social Attitudes Survey show the proportion of respondents who said it was either ‘Not Wrong’ or only ‘A Bit Wrong’ for an unemployed claimant not to report £3k cash from a casual job increased 11 percentage points, from 16% to 27%, between 2016 and 2022
Another survey conducted by YouGov for the Insurance Fraud Bureau in July 2023 found that 27% of 18-24 year olds would “likely” provide false or misleading information on an insurance claim to save money, if struggling financially. This has increased from 21% in the previous year
The overall conclusion of this analysis is that there is an increasing trend in the underlying propensity towards fraudulent behaviour, which can be expected to place an upwards pressure on fraud in the welfare system
Now, I’m no social scientist but I have pondered whether the years of austerity, put in place by the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition in 2010 and fiercely maintained by the Conservative Government ever since, might also have been a significant factor here perhaps? We’ve had years of benefit freezes where the real-term value of subsistence benefits was effectively driven down. We’ve had huge levels of inflation and energy prices in particular going through the roof. We’ve got more children growing up in poverty than for more than a generation and life expectancy in many parts of the country is actually falling.
And alongside this, we seen a 1000% increase in billionaire wealth between 1990 and 2022. Wealth inequality is high and rising and more marked than income inequality. In the UK, the bottom 50% of the population owned less than 5% of wealth in 2021, and the top 10% a staggering 57% (up from 52.5% in 1995). The top 1% alone held 23%. And the UK has very high inequality of income compared to other developed countries; the 9th most unequal incomes of 38 OECD countries.
Call me simple if you like, but I can’t help thinking that all of the above might just be a factor in allegations of the changing perceptions and behaviours of people without much money and with enormous pressures to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. What do you think?
Must be why there’s so much tax evasion too…
This just sounds like the sound of clutched straws scraping the bottom of the DWP barrel of excuses.
DWP’s Permanent Secretary had used the same data back in the Spring to suggest that ...
I don’t understand Chart C p 100 - Police recorded data on Shoplifting went from approx 28,000 Dec 19 to approx 12,500 when retail was shut. and rose to 20,000 when retail re-opened in June 20. Still a lot of shoplifting when very little open and no-one was allowed out.
I’m just glad we’re finally out in the open about our crooked behaviour. Keeping up the charade that we were trying to do our best to pick up after the wreckage of a broken welfare system was becoming too much pressure to bear to be quite honest.
I don’t understand Chart C p 100 - Police recorded data on Shoplifting went from approx 28,000 Dec 19 to approx 12,500 when retail was shut. and rose to 20,000 when retail re-opened in June 20. Still a lot of shoplifting when very little open and no-one was allowed out.
Didn’t spot that Julie, thanks for highlighting. Lies damned lies and statistics.
Gave up after page 80 odd !!
Meanwhile in a parallel universe far far away…
Super-rich being advised how to avoid Labour tax clampdown, undercover investigation suggests