DWP recruits team of 2,500 ‘agents’ to investigate Universal Credit claimants

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/dwp-recruits-team-2500-agents-29167214.amp

by TrouserDemon

26 comments

  1. >**DWP plans to hire 2,500 external agents**

    This means they are outsourcing these jobs. So the government is going to pay a private outsourcer with public money to try and find, what I think Sunak described as ‘life style benefit claimants’. This is clearly going to be worth it and end well.

  3. Why don’t the Tories just put together a secret police force to go after benefit claimants, the sick and disabled, migrants, Muslims, the mentally ill, homeless people, single mothers, left wingers, environmental activists, the black community, trans folk, and everyone else they don’t like?

    I mean why not come out with it, stand up for what you truly believe in, and do it all in one go?

  4. Oh for fuck’s sake. So, instead of actually trying to help people, they rather blow a shit ton of money on trying to find, what? Less then 2% of claimants abusing the system?

    DWP is wasteful or rather, in my town, they took over the ol’ Poundstretcher building. Did it up and a few years later, ditched it despite that being a lot easier to get to for everyone and was convient… ooooooh……

  5. There’s nothing more I love than seeing tax payers money pissed away on moves like this.

  6. The should just employ all people on UC to investigate people who are on UC, and since no people will be on UC any more, since they’re all employed, they will not have to take anyone’s benefits from them.

    We could call it something like Universal Basic Income.

    Just spitballing, I’m sure it needs some work.

  7. Are they going to recruit unemployed people on UC?

    Would be the most useful thing the DWP have ever done.

  8. The magic money tree always seems to pop up when we need ludicrous amounts of money to give to Tories’ mates or to make life worse for people.

    These cunts need locked up for life.

  9. They will recruit people with no experience. You can’t take investigators on, stick them on a sia course and claim they are competent. That’s why the staff who handled PIP claims were known to be not fit for purpose

  10. When covid happened the DWP relaxed their checks into people’s applications, needless to say this resulted in a huge increase in fraudulent claims. If they had done their job properly in the first place they would not have lost loads of taxpayer’s money or be spending even more of it trying to fix their mess.

  11. Wages are so low in the UK that Universal Credit is mostly for people in work, as such it’s a state subsidy to business.

    More importantly what the Tories are doing is ‘going after’ honest decent people, we have seen that with the carers overpayment situation.
    People never forget such behaviour.

  12. If you’re jobless you should give this an application.

    Then deliberately pass all claimants until they sack you.

    Maybe its time for a little civil disobedience?

  13. Worth watching Newsnight from last night and seeing the carers that are paying back huge overpayment’s through no fault of there own but because of the complexity of DWP’S system.

    The system is a joke.

  14. Another point I wish people made more is that the amount unemployed people cosy the taxpayer is literally peanuts compared to subsiding low wages or rich pensioners. And even then, a chuck of that is the buurocracy of it all. I think it’s a couple of % of the welfare budget, but I couldn’t find the statistic.

  15. Reminder that UBI in this country would costs less to roll out today than the current welfare system

  16. In the past the job centre has accused me of being gay because I lived with a another man and went on walks with him and his dog together and accused me of fraud because I was filling in forms on their website wrong without knowing it or being helped/told by my advisor when they thought something was wrong. They also wouldn’t accept my tenancy agreement that my landlord gave me. I’ve also been accused of applying for fake jobs, jobs that were on their own website 

  17. Funny, they can hire all these people for this but they can’t hire enough people to actually run it efficiently.

  18. Imagine if they funded this many psychologists. Our waiting list in CAMHS for therapy is over a year long and I think it’s pretty similar in adult mental health services

  20. If only they investigated tax avoidance and evasion by the rich ( read more than a million in a bank ) as much , we wouldn’t be in this mess

  21. Wouldn’t there naturally be more money returned to the state by hiring 2500 HMRC agents to investigate dodgy high earners that may or may not employ tax avoidance techniques.

  22. I thought it wasn’t worth investigating all of the company directors who stole bounce back loans upto 50,000 surely that would be more worthwhile than this?

  23. Wheres the jobs for all the fucking cunts that rob the country with fake furlough and the ppe fucking cunts scams!! Im actually livid with this!!

    Fucking tory scum, targeting the weak and already impoverished!!!

  24. HMRC agents to investigate covid loan and furlough fraud should be the start point.

    More staff at HMRC to just deal with day to day issues as well.

    Incorrect benefit/UC claims are such a minor amount of ££. Why bother?

    HMRC in this day and age with how it is run is almost not fit for purpose. The tax system is too complicated and you can never get through to speak to them.

    The whole thing needs overhauling not outsourcing to some MPs mate…

  25. Apologies if I’m being dense, but is there any direct sources where the DWP have said they’re hiring ‘external’ agents, as in agency workers?

    I know DWP are hiring fraud investigators at the moment, as roles were available on Civil Service Jobs. They’re shown as ‘external’ as you don’t have to already work for the Civil Service to apply, but there’s no advertisement of roles outside of this.

    Whilst I’ve never worked for DWP or specifically in fraud, I’m a civil servant who has dealings with the business area. Whilst I can’t say too much, in my experience, they tend to go after suspected identity fraudsters (who often hijack vulnerable people’s identities) and make sure they chase up every reasonable explanation possible for a discrepancy.

  26. Overseen by the new Scrounger Czar, a non-executive director of Serco who donated a pack of ice lollies to the Tory party. He will receive a stipend of £500,000, a second home in Kensington and a very rakish hat.

Leave a Reply