Contact: Dr. Hartley Dean
Tel. (01582) 734111, Ext.2127
Fax. (01582) 489358
EMail hartley.dean@luton.ac.uk
The number of people claiming cash benefits has increased rapidly over the past decade and seems certain to remain high for the foreseeable future. Social security benefit fraud is a frequent object of political and media attention, yet very little research has been conducted into the attitudes and beliefs of claimants who "fiddle the system". Are these claimants needy or greedy? Do the rules of the system work to limit or perversely to encourage abuse? Research touching on these questions suggests competing explanations: benefit fraud can be seen as a rational response on the part of households experiencing severe long-term poverty to the problem of how to make ends meet. On the other hand, recent policy changes which target benefits and restrict the right to welfare may also undermine citizens' sense of obligation to the state.
This project, to be conducted in and around Luton with the co-operation of the local Probation Service and other agencies, will involve a series of confidential in-depth interviews: first, with a sample of persons convicted of social security related offences; secondly, with a sample of persons identified by members of the first group and alleged to be currently engaged in benefit fraud. The project will not be concerned with organised fraud, but with various kinds of petty abuse associated, for example, with claimants' failure to declare casual earnings or changes of circumstances.
The project will help in the design of the cash benefit system. It will also be of use to the Probation Service and other professionals in understanding the motivation of an important group of clients, and more generally in our understanding of the development of beliefs about dependency, citizenship and entitlement.
HARTLEY DEAN is Reader in Social Policy at the University of Luton. He was Director of Brixton Advice Centre for 12 years and has published a number of books on the social security system and on dependency culture, including Dependency Culture: the Explosion of a Myth, (with P. Taylor-Gooby, Wheatsheaf, 1992).
OTHER RESEARCHERS:
Margaret Melrose, University of Luton.
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