Dear Editor For nearly 20 years, I was headteacher of two separate schools in Clackmannanshire.

In one of those establishments, there was a very high level of deprivation in the homes of the pupils. Many received ‘free’ school meals. I never regarded it as my responsibility to police the system and with others I would have liked to see meals as an inclusive offer for all pupils.

One Monday, a mother of four children at school, called to tell me that the boys would no longer be getting ‘free dinners’ as her husband, a former miner, had found a job, labouring on the Dunblane bypass.

She was asserting her dignity and confirming the indomitable honesty of working people on benefits.

The ultimate change in family circumstances probably was to reduce an already meagre budget. Had she put the welfare of her children first, as I felt she might have, then she would have remained silent and, in my view, would have been morally justified in so doing. Hullabaloo about benefit fraud, including the occasional, unfortunate cases which are reported in the Advertiser are part of Government propaganda that frauds ripping the welfare budget to shreds. That’s a monstrous fabrication. The gross national amount of benefit fraud is very small at around £16m for 2013 according to DWP figures – that’s about one of third of 1% of the total budget.

The fact that families in benefit find themselves in dire straits has nothing to do with fraud but rather the precipitate decrease in the level of assistance which has accelerated under Iain Duncan Smith’s management of the welfare budget. In the 1970s, benefit represented 60% of the median wage; in 2014, it is 30%. This government and its allies in the media have set about deconstructing the welfare state and a key strategy is to exaggerate out of all proportion the amount of benefit fraud.

I couldn’t imagine that sensitive and dignified Tullibody mother claiming her TV licence on benefit, if she was earning a salary of over £100 000 . The Deputy Prime Minister does.

We know who the real scroungers are.

Yours sincerely John Patton Tillicoultry