Question: What do you think about benefit thieves in the Wigtownshire area and are there any plans to tackle it? There are plenty of them and i think the government should do maybe a few surprise background checks to catch them. Apparantly, according to an advert, we catch over 300 benefit thieves a day, perhaps you should take a closer look? I'm not saying devote all your time and effort to catching them but at least take a bit more action. The taxpayers money that goes to benefit thieves could very well go to somewhere useful like the military or hospitals, even education. With a small amount of effort you could change things. Although it might be the choice of a bigger authoritive figure, fight for it. Then perhaps the view that some have on the government would change.
Asked by stuart123 to Alastair, Elaine, Jane, Sandra, Ted on 28 Sep 2010 in Categories: General.
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Hi Stuart, a few people have mentioned this. Principally its down to the UK Government to regulate benefits and there are a number of ways to report people you know are swindling the system. I have no time for them at all as they are money which they are not entitled to. If you know of someone whose at it pass their details to yout local MP or councillor
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Benefit thieves should be exposed whenever possible. As you say, they are stealing taxpayers’ money and it could be used for other things. It must take a lot of time and effort to investigate those involved and I think that anyone with information that could help identify those abusing the system should contact the appropriate agency.
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Stuart, you make a good point. I don’t know much about the Wigtownshire situation, being a Dumfries councillor, but I believe you when you say this is a big problem in your area, though I’m sure it happens all over the region, including Dumfries.
Some benefits are paid by government and not the council, so it would be their staff whose job it is to catch benefit cheats. We could as a council urge them to put more time and effort into trying to catch these people. The council collects council tax, and I think our rate of collection is quite good, though some people ‘slip through the net’ by moving house, etc. I think sometimes we have to think if the extra money put in to try to catch these people would pay for itself- would we get it back? But i agree with you, it’s a despicable activity, especially when honest people hasve to pay for the cheats.
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The Council does tackle benefit fraud, and I agree that it is theft from you and me, whether taxpayers or not.
Type Dumfries and Galloway benefit fraud into Google and all will be revealed.
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