Following yesterdays’ decision by the DWP to sack A4E from just one small mandatory work contract, the National Audit Office (NAO)has now accused the department of failing to properly investigate the company or many others who have possibly been guilty of defrauding the taxpayer.
The NAO says that the DWP investigation team failed to request vital evidence before completing its investigation into A4E, which concluded that there was no evidence of fraud but that because of poor procedures in place it was ending one of the companies 16 contracts with the department.
The NAO report found that the DWP knew of the risk of fraud in back-to-work programmes but failed to make even the most basic checks, such as contacting employers to see if they really had given claimants jobs.
Of £773,000 worth of fraud by private companies actually uncovered by the DWP, only £410,000 has so far been repaid.
Full story in the Guardian.
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DWP ignores private sector back-to-work fraud
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· 7 months agoI submitted a PIP claim in 2020 as an appointee on behalf of my adult son, who has ADHD & ASD. He was awarded the standard rate until January 2024. We have completed a review form already but not heard anything.My son would not have been able to go through the claims process without my help. He struggled to understand the questions being asked. I believe having another adult acting as his appointee was crucial and was key to achieving an award.- Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published. · 7 months ago@Bobby I totally agree with you Bobby. I also am an appointee for my son. My son took one look at the pip form and said - there’s no way I can fill that in - he didn’t understand any of it. It took me a long time for him to understand what I was doing and what pip was at first.
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- Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published. · 7 months agoI was refused PIP for ASD and ADHD in 2019 despite my psychiatrist letter, mediation s and letters from an assessment .The PIP assessor lied about me, called me dirty and repeated the same questions over and over again resulting in my frustration making an outburst due to my short temper. I was also asked repeatedly I had ever been in a mental institution.My father came with me and saw my nil points letter and was alarmed that I was lied about.I was called hostile, aggressive etcIt took me almost a year to recover from the assessment as I felt that I was wasnt worth anything.This year I applied for ADP (Scotland) and was awarded both parts for ADHD and ASD, mostly ADHDI wish the rest of the UK would have ADP, as Social Security were fantastic!I am now 49 BTW!
- Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published. · 7 months ago@P I was refused and took it to tribunal. 18 months after my application for ADHD, at the start of the tribunal the presenting officer from DWP said she had reassessed and I was awarded enough points for standard in daily living and mobility. The PIP process breaches the Equalities Act 2010 and the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. Yet DWP are never taken to task for it.
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- Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published. · 7 months agoMy daughter in law was recently turned down for PIP with zero awards for both care and mobility even though she had a supporting letter . Assesser told that her that he would read support letter but didnt and now we are having to go through MR .
- Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published. · 6 months ago@Lesley Our son AdHd ( diagnosed at 20 , now 24 under local MH team) , we're at 3rd stage of claiming Pip as initially scored 2 points , went up to 3 upon appeal , but as he's bright and answers questions as he "thinks he should" and doesn't want to take money away from others , he's not got passed yet for PIP even though he's at home and we do everything for him . We've even had letters from his MH nurse and psychiatrist say" don't believe a word the claimant says " as they believe he's entitled to Pip. Needless to say he's not on UC as he won't / cant get round to claiming this either so we're paying for everything including meds ... and we all know how expensive private ADHD meds are ....
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- Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published. · 7 months agoI would say it's massively skewed towards younger people getting PIP for AdHD because many older people have gone under the radar. I was very late diagnosed with Audhd (autism and ADHD) in my 60s. More and more (particularly women) are getting late diagnosed although many older people won't know they have it and/or won't bother pursuing a diagnosis. I imagine the backlog will be reflected in the figures eventually but even so many will still go undiagnosed.
- Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published. · 1 months ago
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