Angry mobs...

[baldowrie]

your youngest 12 at the moment, later it will be 7!

[Russian Doll]

your youngest 12 at the moment, later it will be 7!

ta for that....i can understand the 12 year old age or maybe 11 at a push but 7 is way to young..my 6 year old and 8 year old are going through tweenies at the mo and even as a stay at home um i still cant be there enough for them.....

[Graye]

I have no idea about the benefits in France, what is your point there? I happen to live here part of my time, the rest in the UK. I claim no benefits from either country but do pay into both their economies, pay council tax in each country, pay Income Tax in the UK, etc, etc.

I am now self-employed but previously held down a full time professional job while raising my son, having a total of 13 weeks paid maternity leave. He has turned into a well-educated and perfectly reasonable, outgoing, responsible and balanced human being despite having health issues which made aspects of his education hard for him, and I made sure he was never a latch key kid either.

I believe Child Benefits were introduced "across the board" and were/are paid to everyone. They were never designed to cover the total cost of raising a child. I seem to remember it was something like 7/6 a week (around 35p I believe) and that was for the second child, anyone with one child got nothing.

[baldowrie]

I ajm self emplyed too..self employed tutor being paid by the goverment saving them at least £24,000 a year plus another £15,000 plus for the specialsit help he would need.

Is my 'job' not important?

[evelyn]

I am one of the "scroungers"

I am a single mum of 3, dumped at three months pregnant with child no 3, when she was 6 months old i went back to work, where i busted my butt from 7am to 12 midnight 6 days aweek working 3 minimum wage jobs, paying tax and NI.

Unfortunatly i broke my back at work, i wasnt able to clam compensation because knowone saw the accedent, fab eh!

After 12 weeks in hospital i went home bairly able to walk to the wonderfull benifits system, we were evicted from our privet ren home because i wasnt intitled to housing benift because i wasnt in hospital long enough, we moved to another privet rent house with a bank lone as deposit, again we lost the house because the housing benifit didnt get payed as it took 3 1/2 months to prosess the clam, the land loard sent his "guys" round and i got a good kicking and told to pay up or get burned out.

The councill rehoused us thank god, my benifits got sorted out and we have lived here for the last 10 years on benifits because although i have very good days where the pain in my back is down to a dull rorr and i can do things and walk as far as the corner shop, i am still unfit for work as i spend around 5 months a year ( a day here a day ther) flat on my back sobbing in pain or just off my head on pain killers. I have tryed to gat a part time job but got saked the second week because i had 5 days off with my back. and it took 6 months to get back on full benifits. You should try feeding 3 kids and keeping the house walm and other bills on £ 58 a week

I now run a tenants and residents association for my estate and i am the chair of my housing trust all as a voultere.

I have worked my pants off and i give back.

Dose this make me a scrounger?? will i be expected to go out to work?? my youngest child is 14.

I know there are people who have never worked and have no intention of ever working, living on benifits, and who somehow can afford a car and holidays labled clothes and 6 nights out a week. these low lives sadly are not few and farbetween and need to be sorted out.

But is it right that women like me should be forced into jobs they have no hope of holding down and will end up living so far below the poverty line??

Eve

[StripyPixieSocks]

Yes, as pointed out above in 2010 you will be forced into work when your youngest child is 7 years old.

Who is going to be looking after these children from 9 to 5 and during the school holidays is anyones guess if you cannot afford childcare as it's not a sufficient reason to not be in work apparently!

... what happens when that fails to weed out the career unemployed? Will you have to work immediately after giving birth?

As to the above poster, if you are on Income Support you are fair game and yes they will make you look for work broken back or no broken back... it's lovely what a struggling Government think up to win a few votes eh? ... and NO it definitely is not right whatsoever!

[baldowrie]

Yes, as pointed out above in 2010 you will be forced into work when your youngest child is 7 years old.

Who is going to be looking after these children from 9 to 5 and during the school holidays is anyones guess if you cannot afford childcare as it's not a sufficient reason to not be in work apparently!

Precisely and on top of that there are no workable pans to improve childcare or make it affordable. Also what happens to all those children who have a disability that no childcare facility will take and they can not fit into school because there are no facilities there and no extra training for teachers and all the school there were set up to cope with various disabilities are shut?

The parent will have to work or be 'punished' and the child? Well lets hope they can fend for themselves

[Clara]

I really have a problem with this thread because it seems that a few "facts" are going unchecked; does anyone really have any figures on these vast number of claimants who are supposedly living the life of riley at the expense of the tax payer? It seems to me like a tabloid moral panic that has somehow worked its way into becoming accepted truth. I don't doubt that it happens that there are some people claiming benefits that really don't deserve them, but I suspect they are by far in the minority of claimants. And frankly I am willing to accept the fact that it might be impossible to weed them all out without also legislating against people who really need help, and that for the sake of feeding someone like Evelin's kids (on a pittance) some of it also might fall into the "wrong" hands. That is not to say I am willing to tolerate benefit cheats, but just that when legislation is proposed it needs to be looked at from a different angle: what harm is going to be caused to the genuinely vulnerable and is it really worth it?

[JulieSherris]

This has always been an emotive topic on message boards/chatrooms, etc.... and I'm not going to comment on whether it's right or wrong for the government's decisions... (personally I think politicians talk out of the wrong end of their body....)

What I will say is this....
Most of us 'normal' folks knows or knows of someone who is playing the system...however large they're playing it.

And what do 'most' of us actually DO about it? Do you report it? Do you hope someone else will?
Do you ignore it, but rant about it?

Well, maybe it's time for everyone out there to start reporting the folks who are blatantly abusing the system - the system abuse costs a LOT of money that could be used for those folks who REALLY need it.

OK, we've all played the system in one way or another - even if it's just to take a sickie from work on pay.... but for the folks who are taking the p*ss.... well, they should be reported.

But what happens when you DO report? Well, nothing, actually!!
I reported a certain person on numerous occasions - this person was on full income support... she had 2 part time jobs, cash in hand... she got her rent paid, council tax, etc etc. She got weekly cash from the mother AND father of her grandchildren, as they were living with her at the time.... and the child benefit..... and she lived with a man who was working full time too but didn't declare that.
They had 2 cars, a house full of animals, sky TV, she had lunch out 3 or 4 times a week when in the town shopping..... she spent money like it was going out of fashion....

I gave the fraud folks FULL details of everything - and for SIX years it carried on. The benefit fraud actually lasted a total of 18 years.... until she passed away.
And who was this person? My mum.

Am I bad for constantly reporting her? Yeah, maybe, but she had over £500 a week thru her hands & she was always broke!!??!!

Anyway, I guess my point is.... report the fraudsters - the less the government have to pay out, the more there will be left for those that REALLY need it.

Julie.

[Graye]

I'm not sure why people have to take threads like this so personally. Comments on the general state of affairs are not attacks on specific people and yet some immediately get spikey and defensive.

Clara, perhaps you didn't grow up in a town like the one in which I spent my formative years. There are whole estates of single moms who have never had a permanent relationship but who will live on "the social" for most of their lives. They will carry on having illegitimate children because "they know their rights" and will cock a snook at anyone who suggests they are in the wrong. They have little interest in their children but know exactly how to work the system. Their main intention at the age of sixteen or so is to have the first of several children so that they qualify for a council house and they go from there. I have various acquaintances in the UK who are in fact lovely people but who know every dodge to stay unemployed but then work on the "black economy" and have far more available cash than my OH and me. I'm sure there are no figures available for any of these.

Then there are genuine claimants who are doing their best to get by and fighting the system introduced to deal with these scroungers. It doesn't make THEM scroungers and I hope I haven't suggested they should be lumped in with them. What there does need to be is a system which will identify the genuine claimants from the people who never intend to be anything other than totally dependent despite being able-bodied and capable. I have no idea what that sysem should be but there does need to be one and fast.

Baldowrie, I'm not sure why you appear to feel this is some sort of personal attack. If your child cannot be catered for within the education system for whatever reason then of course you should be entitled to home school him/her.

And Evelyn I know exactly where you are coming from having gone through an almost identical scenario with my employer - back injury at work, no one saw it happen, effectively sacked for taking too much sick leave, denied retirement on health grounds as "I might recover at some point" (as if!). I personally was lucky in that they needed to give me two years salary as compensation at the point I left. I also set up my own business straight away and did not need to claim any benefits. However I would have had no qualms as I paid into the system for 30 years anyway.

I've just been checking online and can't immediately see anywhere where it states that just about everyone will be forced into employment no matter what their level of illness. Can anyone point me to it?

[evelyn]

Julie,

I think you were very brave to report someone let alone your mum, good on you.

I know lots of people who are running every scam going, and i do nothing, to my shame.

Eve

[JulieSherris]

Julie,

I think you were very brave to report someone let alone your mum, good on you.

I know lots of people who are running every scam going, and i do nothing, to my shame.

Eve

Not brave, Evelyn, but at one point, I too ended up claiming for a few months & was given £42 a week - and as Mum had my kids for a bit, she still wanted her £20 a week as well - which she got..... general circumstances made me really fed up, so I tried to do the 'right' thing

[baldowrie]

Baldowrie, I'm not sure why you appear to feel this is some sort of personal attack. If your child cannot be catered for within the education system for whatever reason then of course you should be entitled to home school him/her.

But that's the point I am trying to make...being a home educator is 'no excuse' and those on income support will be penalised. I am not on it, I am disabled and have been for 20 years. So no personal attack on me. I have 'passed' the all works test several times and found to be unfit several times, all but one and 6 months later and £3000 for tribunal I was found unfit. There's where the real waste is. The time wasting on genuine claimants.

From what I have heard on the home ed circuit is that ALL claimants of income support will subject to the need to actively seek work, regardless if they are looking after a disabled child 24/7 or not or disabled themselves. The only way to prevent this is to prove they can not actively seek work and having a disabled child or being disabled yourself is no excuse, and there will be some who at the job centre who will take this to the very letter. It appears to have been ill conceived and badly set out.

There are parents who are worried sick about what will happen to their children, and I not talking about the serial fraudsters. MP's are lobbying for various amendments to made to take account of real circumstances that make going out to work difficult if not impossible. Many have already said they will turned up with their child to all interviews, including at the job centres and they have already been told if they do their benefit will be cut or removed as they are putting themselves at a disadvantage. So even before they find a job they have to fork out for child care.

[Clara]

Clara, perhaps you didn't grow up in a town like the one in which I spent my formative years. There are whole estates of single moms who have never had a permanent relationship but who will live on "the social" for most of their lives.....

But you've just proved one of the points I was trying to make, check your language..... there are WHOLE estates of single mums are there? where every single house is occupied by some kind of vicky pollard caricature? I doubt that, I understand what you are trying to convey, but this kind of inaccurate and inflammatory language doesn't help get to the bottom of anything. And presuming to know the future life of all of these women too, have you ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecies?

Please don't presume to know where I grew up....

[Graye]

Clara, I did say perhaps so therefore I did not presume to know where you grew up. But I DO know about where I grew up. However, who exactly is Vicky Pollard? A TV character? We don't watch a great deal of TV so I have no idea.

Julie, well done on what you did. It's a pity that nothing was done. My previous career (although not related to benefits etc) did sometimes revolve around people giving "information" on others. Unfortunately, with the best intentions in the world, the information was often not sufficient to pursue the wrongdoers. It's a pity that more people don't do exactly what you did, giving very specific details. If that involves contacting the department/agency concerned so that they can extract the specifics they need then do so - they will respect confidentiality and you will not even need to give your name etc. Too many people ignore what goes on under their noses. If I could come up with specifics on the person I mentioned then I would report him too but he makes sure everything is very woolly and no one really knows where he does his under the counter work. He certainly does it but makes sure he doesn't brag about it enough to give anyone the information required.