i got curious about whether the uk's spending to fight disability claims was still a ridiculous amount as a proportion of the amount actually lost to false claims and i ended up deep in the number mines
-
i got curious about whether the uk's spending to fight disability claims was still a ridiculous amount as a proportion of the amount actually lost to false claims and i ended up deep in the number mines
-
i looked at the government's figures for funds lost to fraud and error in the benefits system https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system#previous-reports
focusing specifically on DLA and PIP since 2016 (they did not keep useful data on those two benefits before that)
-
i excluded ESA cos that got rolled into UC a while back and i wouldn’t know where to start extracting that info – besides, it’s also a benefit paid to people with disabilities who are already in work or looking for work, which feels relevant to the discussion at hand
-
the appeals process and mandatory reconsiderations for DLA and PIP reported on here https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/disability-benefit-appeals-pip-universal-credit-cost-dwp/ cost almost 40% (£27m for DLA and £323m for PIP) of the total amount lost to fraud for the same benefits in the same time period (£340m for DLA and £520m for PIP), and after successful appeals £250m of that amount was spent on cases they lost anyway
-
that’s before we get to what is spent actually investigating and prosecuting real and imagined cases of disability benefit fraud. It's way harder to find info on that – i think it’s split up between the DWP, local councils and the FIU. probably even harder to parse out from that what’s spent on disability benefit cases. but - it involves lawyers and government employees’ time and probably isn’t cheap!
-
i genuinely don't know if it would equal at least the remaining £510m of fraudulent claims – over the time period we looked at, that’s £63m/year, which doesn't really sound like that much?
-
what stood out while i was poking about in there:
- the rate of fraud for disability benefits is very low in general – just £70m between those two benefits last year. not surprising since i would imagine it’s the most arduous and unrewarding grift in the world
- the rate of fraud for disability benefits is several times smaller than the amount overpaid due to administrative or claimant error