The Micro-Politics of Welfare Rights: The Interpretation and Application of the Cohabitation Rule in the Housing Benefit Scheme

Abstract

The question of how rigorously state welfare bureaucracies should scrutinise the personal domestic and sexual circumstances of social security claimants provides a constant source of political controversy. The problem facing governments is essentially where to strike the balance between the (supposedly) competing interests of a claimant's individual privacy and society's concern to safeguard public finds from fraud and abuse.