http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... years.html


The problem for everyone is that those on Incapacity Benefit is considerably better paid than Unemployment benefit so is well worth claiming. If you take off all the mental conditions such as depression then you will still not clear the excess over other counties.

The government loved it as it kept the unemployment figures down.

They positively encouraged it for a while, as it lowered the headline unemployment figures. All governments will cheat with the figures if it gets them re-elected.

I don't understand the problem. You're ill, you claim benefit - is this not the very nature of the system?

Yes, some people defraud the system, but where there's money there's crime, it's a fact of life. The estimated cost of benefit fraud doesn't even begin to approach the level of revenue lost to HM Treasury though "legal" tax avoidance schemes.

The combined cost of fraud and error in the benefit system is somewhere between £1-3 billion. The revenue lost through tax avoidance stands at around £15 billion.

http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser ... ud/a378274

Yes but they seem to think that people who are on it for longer than a few months are malingerers. The problem is that some conditions never progress enough to get them on to disability benefits and they do not recover enough to return to work.

The other point I was going to make was that if you're incapacitated, you're incapacitated, so it's a long term thing by its very nature. However it's the most abused benefit out there as some incapacities are hard to measure. Back pain has got to be the worst to quantify as pain is subjective. There are people with chronic back pain, but unfortunately my first reaction is that they're making it up due to the amount if people that are making it up. It really is unfair on the genuine cases.

Last year my brother complained about a bad back, it was only a week after he had a MRI, did his back finally give out. He was paralysed from the chest down for months after the operation. The doctor had the attitude that it will go away.