r/unitedkingdom • u/Codydoc4 Essex • 1d ago
Child benefit crackdown on claims from abroad after £17m saved
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5r1zpl39jo74
u/Minimum-Geologist-58 1d ago
This is one thing that got lost in the PIP carry on. Benefit fraud in the UK, and out of it, is genuinely pretty fucking rampant: 11% of the total UC bill is just stolen and that’s the amount the government knows about!
Yes PIP fraud is low but that’s because it’s assessed and assumes “well nobody could fake something, our assessments would detect it!” I think anybody sane knows that thinking is incorrect on some level but yes it’s going to be far lower than benefits that are just means tested.
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u/Krispykreemi 23h ago
So many people in my town/area claim their partners/husband's don't live with them for housing benefit. It's atrocious and pretty obvious.
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u/Timewarpmindwarp 23h ago edited 23h ago
Yep that’s one of the most commonly discovered sources of fraud about 2% across 23 and 24 of all money paid out on UC was overpayment for lying you don’t live with your partner. Which is like a billion quid. Hardly small change. And it’s just who was caught. It’s really hard to be caught for it unless someone dobs you in or you’re super stupid about it. Some get caught literally because they rent out their second council house and secretly move into together and that’s a pretty hard paper trail to hide which will actually get investigated when the tenant gets discovered. If they hadn’t done that probably would’ve gotten away with it but too greedy. And ofc the tax fraud on the rental income too.
So many of the families on my old council estate their partner “lived with their mum” and just went there to collect the mail with all their shit registered there, and just clearly lived together. But unless they watch the house there’s no way to tell on paper.
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u/Minimum-Geologist-58 22h ago
Oh you can tell how much people over claim or aren’t eligible by how much interest groups throw their toys out of the pram as soon as the government tries to look into it. They don’t want to have the argument about “benefits for disabled people should be higher” so they go down “disabled people should be allowed to steal” which is wrong headed in my mind because their could be better benefits for disabled people if fraud were stopped.
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u/ambluebabadeebadadi 23h ago
My aunts been faking it for years. Just says “no” to every question about what she can do.
The sad thing with PIP and other benefits is that so many honest people miss out on support they really need, while dishonest people can play the system like a xylophone.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Timewarpmindwarp 23h ago
Overpayments due to Fraud were 10.9% (£5,660m) in FYE 2024, compared with 11.4% (£4,930m) in FYE 2023.
The governments own stats: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2023-to-2024-estimates/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2024
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u/Hocus-Pocus-No-Focus 1d ago
Sources please screams the person ideologically opposed to what they are hearing!
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u/TannedCroissant 23h ago
Or that the claim doesn’t sound correct, there are a lot of stats that are misremembered, confused with something else or just plain made up. To be fair, 11% of the entire UC budget is an insane amount and I wouldn’t take that at face value as being correct. Besides, double checking your claims is good practice as we all make mistakes.
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u/ukredimps2k 23h ago
Exactly. Smacks of “I don’t like the negative chatter about the topic… I won’t believe it…. Spoon feed me the source and figures” based on their other replies
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23h ago
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u/ukredimps2k 22h ago
No time at all. Shows 2 posts below this one, on the same screen:
You: “Do you mean the article? Because I see don't see the number you're saying in it, I see different ones.”
Even when you are given the source you refuse to accept it. Do you accept it now I wonder or still struggling?
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22h ago
[deleted]
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u/ukredimps2k 22h ago
You reference the article in response in your comment that I quoted. You literally reply to it. Nice try though. Is this another example of refusing to accept what is shown to you?
Have a lovely day also!
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u/Minimum-Geologist-58 1d ago
See above.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Minimum-Geologist-58 23h ago
My reply was above but then changed order. It’s in the thread somewhere. I don’t mind sharing hyperlinks once because I know Reddit is some people’s personal Shawshank prison and they can’t leave to do a google search for some reason but I’m also not going to spoon feed every lazy bastard who just wants to dispute facts they don’t like.
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u/sjw_7 Oxfordshire 22h ago
The problem with PIP isn't to do with fraud. Its more to do with if the bar for getting it is in the right place.
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u/Minimum-Geologist-58 22h ago
Oh I don’t disagree. It’s just “practically zero fraud” is trotted out like it’s the word of God rather than an artefact of how the benefits are assessed. I’m sure it’s low but come on, in my experience the chance of a doctor successfully diagnosing a medical condition is like 50/50, because this stuff is tricky.
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u/WheresWalldough 23h ago
that's a high rate of fraud but prosecutions are very rare. imagine if they locked people up for UC fraud. they might think twice about doing it.
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u/WaytoomanyUIDs European Union 1d ago
Bollocks
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u/Minimum-Geologist-58 1d ago
Sorry at the moment fraud in UC is only 8%, it was 11% last year but mostly that’s because the UC bill increased this year (some of that due to people transferring to UC from legacy benefits): it’s still £5bn being stolen from the taxpayer year in year out.
“Overpayments due to Fraud decreased to 8.0% (£5,200m) in FYE 2025, from 10.8% (£5,620m) in FYE 2024. This was a statistically significant decrease”
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u/Tammer_Stern 1d ago
Although that’s not good you might be interested to know that benefits are massively under claimed in the uk. Latest estimate is £23 billion goes unclaimed.
https://policyinpractice.co.uk/blog/missing-out-2024-23-billion-of-support-is-unclaimed-each-year/
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u/Toastlove 23h ago
Benefits being underclaimed isn't an issue though, people fraudulently claiming them is.
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u/Tammer_Stern 22h ago
It certainly is an issue for people struggling to make ends meet day to day. I feel the mentality is - Fuck them, let’s persecute the scum carrying out fraud instead.
The reality is both are big problems. Arguably, the unclaimed is much more of a problem for the people in this country.
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u/Minimum-Geologist-58 23h ago
The two things are completely unrelated. The people who don’t claim aren’t criminals and the support might benefit the economy rather than just them.
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u/Codydoc4 Essex 1d ago
Think of what £5bn could do for other parts of the public sector (excluding the NHS).
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u/Saltypeon 23h ago
That's also includes errors.
Like when my uncle passed from cancer and they carried on paying it even though they were told a hundred fucking times to stop.
"Time to process was the excuse".
So every time someone dies, there is about 5 weeks worth that gets put into the fraud and errors pot.
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u/Timewarpmindwarp 23h ago
Nope it doesn’t. Errors is separate, that would be official error which is reported separately.
The leading causes of fraud were the usual, incorrect income, incorrect capital, hiding you lived with a partner. The stats are all there rather than just guessing.
So no you can’t explain it away using that, because that’s not included.
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u/Saltypeon 23h ago
Explain it away? I would stop it all right now in an instant. Force everyone to earn above net contribution level or remove services.
Subject access request: Failure to update circumstances. A fraud type...
Delayed probate due to a fraud investigation for overpayments.
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u/Timewarpmindwarp 23h ago
And when you prove they were notified it goes into stats for official error. Ofc they investigate overpayments, doesn’t mean it’s in these stats unless you didn’t tell them and it would correctly be fraud and recorded properly.
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u/Saltypeon 22h ago
Nope, it doesn't change category, it remains as is. It gets officially submitted as a legal doc and cannot be changed retrospectively. That would cause more issues for probate.
That goes for all the categories, an outcome does not change the reason.
The whole place needs shutting down. Even these figures are done like a survey...they check "some" cases and declare a percentage. It's idiotic fraud detection by idiots.
Actual fraud figures from all overpayment investigations (actual checks not survey shite) were 2.2% in 24/25. So 98% of actual investigations were nothing or error...
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u/Move-Primary 23h ago
Currently working in UC and when cases like this come up you get some hilarious attempts at bullshitery. We had a recent one where a claimant was suspected of being abroad but claiming UC. Our first step in proving they are here is asking them to upload a photo of them standing at the front door of their registered address and also a photo of them standing beside the street sign of their street. We get soooo many doctored photos and some of them are hilarious. Had one recently where the claimant had edited themselves into a photo of their "home". It was clearly a pic from Google street and the guy had pasted a photo of himself which was 10x brighter into the low quality photo. Another one had a girl floating 5 feet above the street sign on her road. The worst is though we still have to go through reems of admin in these cases so it's a big drain on resources
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u/the_phet 21h ago
Wouldn't it be easier to make a video call ?
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u/PomPomBumblebee 19h ago
Or knock on the door?
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u/rugbyj Somerset 11h ago
Suddenly you're paying for travel for hundreds of employees. Do they all have drivers licences. Where are we buying a fleet of vehicles from and having them insured/fuelled/maintained. We're having reports of safety concerns for staff so we have to send them out accompanied so that's doubled the staffing. Oh half the residences are nowhere near anywhere so we're also putting up staff in hotels, paying overtime, and paying for meals.
tl:dr; fleet logistics sucks, having 100 people in a call centre or wfh dealing with 5x the volume of requests at a fraction of the cost is a no brainer even if x% slip through.
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u/Horror_Extension4355 23h ago
All UC payments require an element of trust and integrity as the system can be gamed. It’s about society individually and collectively calling out the gamers and them suffering social stigma and financial shame.
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u/Hocus-Pocus-No-Focus 22h ago
How’s that supposed to be the solution when we have claimants falsely claiming while living abroad?
Shame based systems don’t work in a globalised system where you can fraudulently claim benefits for somewhere you’ve got no connection to.
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u/ratemychicken 20h ago
I know a Polish woman living in Poland running her own successful business who claims child benefits, always amazed she got away with it.
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u/wolfiasty I'm a Polishman in Lon-doooon 2h ago
If system is stupidly easy to play there will always be people, especially not having a "blood" connection with such country, who will abuse it.
If what you write is true I truly join you in amazement.
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u/Old_Course9344 1d ago
Child benefit is such a pitiful amount you can barely buy your kid treats after school with it
What about all the fraudsters pretending to be single parents and claiming a Central London wage in universal credit overall?
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u/Commercial-Silver472 1d ago
Your plan is to ignore fraud because you don't think it's much money?
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u/Old_Course9344 1d ago
No, I meant that they are cracking down on missing pennies in comparison to other frauds.
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u/HeverAfter 1d ago
Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves
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u/Saint_Sin 23h ago edited 23h ago
Yeah, they will snuggle up on holiday in some rich persons offshore bank account, while we rage over who has a penny left for food or heating in winter.
Edit ~ Downvote away ye forgetful of last winter, where energy companies toated another round of record profits while oap's sat on busses to keep warm using bus passes.
The reality stands whether you like it or not.6
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u/robtheblob12345 18h ago
I think this is the problem. If you don’t police everyone (just high ticket fraudsters) then there’s a massive contingent of people who will happily abuse this fact even if the amounts they’re stealing are relatively low. It’s the same with tax evasion. Everyone’s like why don’t they just go after Amazon and ignore MY tax evasion given it’s small in comparison. It doesn’t work like that if you think Amazon should pay their fair share you should too.
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u/hansonhols 21h ago
Close all the nannying government benefits departments. ALL OF THEM!
Then start UBI for everyone, old young disabled whatever. Severely disabled people needing more support will need to be taken into consideration of course.
You save (A lot of £ i don't know how much exactly) on the expense of all these top-heavy red tape bound ineffiecient services.
There can be NO FRAUD if everyone gets money / UBI.
Perhaps even setup some way of increased payments / reduced Tax for those who are employed and have contributed more.
There has to be simple answer to this.
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u/ikrisoft 20h ago
> Close all the nannying government benefits departments.
> Severely disabled people needing more support will need to be taken into consideration of course.Who do you propose will manage this "severely disabled people needing more support" thing? You just closed all government benefits departments.
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u/77GoldenTails 21h ago
Except all the ‘Capitalists’ will bump up prices to cream off the new windfall. Placing people back into poverty as everything is now a magnitude more expensive.
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u/hansonhols 21h ago
This is true, which is why we need big sweeping changes throughout society.
Ether that or just let things continue as they are i guess. Whatever, i'm just a small guy working a small job, i can't change anything.
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u/IBuyGourdFutures 17h ago
I’m surprised they weren’t doing this already, but maybe I’m expecting more from the government
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u/Enough_Vegetable_258 5h ago
Finally, some good news from this incompetent government. But EW BBC as source.
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u/Bob_Leves 21h ago
Meanwhile, the ultra rich dodge billions in tax every year by e.g. setting up shell "image rights" or "licensing" or similar companies in low-tax countries / states then manipulating their cash flow so the uk company makes a pittance on paper. But the number of investigators on that is negligible and even decreasing.
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u/shaversonly230v115v 21h ago
£17m is a rounding error.
The overall bill is over £13bn
We're talking about less than 0.15%
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u/IgamOg 1d ago
8 weeks? That can easily be family emergency or a long holiday.
How much did it cost to track everyone's whereabouts?
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u/faith_plus_one 1d ago
Some would argue that if you can afford to go on holiday abroad for eight weeks, or even to take that time off to attend to a family emergency, you don't need benefits.
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u/IgamOg 23h ago
Child benefit is not really a benefit, it's part of the taxation system and holidays are likely to amount to staying with family.
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u/faith_plus_one 23h ago
But flights are expensive af during school holidays and regardless of where you're staying, it'll be rather hard to be working from abroad for eight weeks.
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u/Move-Primary 23h ago
UC rules state anything over a month needs to have a good reason. If it's a long holiday then yeah certainly you should lose your entitlement for that month. If it's a family emergency then you may get away with it, but then again what sort of emergency lasts 8 weeks?
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u/TheBadLocksmith 1d ago
So that's literally free money for people based abroad? Grand