[MargaretR]

Any benefits system will be abused by some - at least it has replaced the Victorian Workhouse which was where both the genuine and the scroungers ended up.

An amusing anecdote - as these 'scrounger dads' shifted between the dole and the sick to avoid being sent to a job, doctors sometimes wrote 'plumbitis' (swinging the lead) on their medical certificates. In fact there was a list of medical terms the doctors used to get them sent early for a medical and so they would move back to the dole again.