corrupt agreement among uk ‘s ‘main’ political parties responsible for poverty creating welfare state and the waste or theft of £billions each year

0330

0315 [0300] [0255] [0245] [0220] Hrs GMT
London
Friday
01 April 2011.

AADHIKAROnline © Muhammad Haque London Commentary.

A special legal disclaimer that applies to this commentary that I am writing below
I am writing this as based on extensive original research carried out contemporaneous as well as contextually. I am very acutely ware that there has been no publication of the diagnosis that I am publishing below by anyone on the internet or elsewhere. I am therefore asking that anyone who is tempted to claim that they too have been thinking along this line or that they too have come to the same conclusion to pause a moment before making such claims and organise their evidence that can universally objectively verifiably substantive anything that they may be tempted to say that may look or read like what I am saying here and what I shall be saying in this series of of updates as part of my London commentary.
Does David Cameron have a clue as to how much fraud goes on in the Government Departments? He must do, mustn’t he? He is, after all, the Prime Minister! As Prime Minister, David Cameron commands the service of all the ‘civil’ servants that he surveys! Or does he? It is evident from these figures, released by the Parliamentary publishing operation itself, that the UK’s daily defamed ‘welfare’ state is the source of £BILLIONS of wasted and or lost money that belongs to the public.
What is blatantly stated but has NOT featured on the front page [or even ion the inside pages] of either the Richard Desmond-ed DAILY EXPRESS or of the Daily Star or of the DAILY MAIL is the staggering amount of £3.1 billion overpaid and £1.3 billion underpaid in 2009-10.

The Parliamentary report comments [italics added]:
“The Department launched a five-year strategy for tackling error in January 2007 which included an emphasis on training and support for staff and informing customers of their responsibilities.[8] Despite this, levels of error have remained constant over the past few years.[9] Figure 2 shows that between 2006-07 and 2009-10, there was no sustained decrease in the level of over or underpayments due to administrative and customer error, taken as a percentage of total benefits spending.[10]”

What the MPs do not admit to and what the DWP will not explain is the real reason behind the errors and the losses of £Billions of public money.
I stress the phrase ‘public money’ as very intentionally distinguished from ‘taxpayers money’.
That reason is IN A BIG WAY the personnel that make and control the key decisions about payments in the name of the DWP.
I have said this for a very long time now and I have yet to find any reference to the ‘welfare state in the context of the multi Billion losses’ through alleged errors every year.
I am asserting that there is a POLICY why this is not discussed either in the news reports or in the comment sections of the old Fleet Street titles. And it is the same prevalence of POLICY which is the reason why there has been no reported or - more to the point in the context of the actual role and record of law reporting - no reportable cases exposing the losses of £Billions of public money every year.
This POLICY must be one of the MANY unwritten agreements among the “main Parties”.
Why am I saying this?
The answer is very easy to find and substantiate:
had there been no POLICY and what is more had there been no unwritten agreements among the “main” [numerically significant] Parties then there would have been rows, scandals and resignations.
Yet there has been no row, no scandal and most emphatically no resignations.
Why?
Because rows, scandals and resignations all take place AS A RESULT of adverse information being leaked or published by OTHERS who want the decision-making person or personnel to suffer embarrassment and or personal humiliation.
For that to happen, there would have to have ben NO AGREEMENT, no contract, no deal.
But there are deals among the Parties concerned.
Hence there is no rows or scandals that could rock the DWP.
Instead, the PERSISTENTLY propagated “idea of scandal” concerning the “welfare state [that is the Department for Work and Pensions = DWP= in the main here] is SEEN as being the fault of the claimants: the main body of the claimants being either not paid or very low paid. The stigma that thus attaches to the un-named but socially stigmatised poor is then very much permeant one that then gets recycled and repeated to damn people in general low income and people in general poverty. I am asserting here that this is one of the INTENDED SOCIAL RESULTS BEHIND THE DE FACTO AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE PARTIES over the over-misrepresented “welfare state”
[To be continued]




The Following has been taken from the UK Houses of Parliament's publishing web site for the sole purpose of reference and commentary substantiation in the context of the writer’s commentary.

The actual URL is:

http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/the-tony-collins-blog/2011/03/are-the-big-it-systems-of-state-untouchable-as-some-claim/


















Reducing errors in the benefits system - Public Accounts Committee Contents

1 Extent of error

1. The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for much of the benefits system, and the majority of payments are processed by the Department's agencies, Jobcentre Plus and the Pension, Disability and Carers Service. The benefits system is both large and complex: there are around 30 different types of benefits and pensions, with 900 distinct rates of payment.[2] In 2009-10, some £148 billion of payments were made to 20 million people.[3] We took evidence on two reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General looking at administrative and customer error in the benefits system.[4]

2. The Department estimates that it made a total of £3.1 billion of overpayments and £1.3 billion of underpayments in 2009-10 as a result of fraud, customer error or administrative error (Figure 1).[5] Of these totals, error accounted for £2.2 billion in overpayments and £1.3 billion in underpayments. Administrative error accounted for £1.1 billion of overpayments and £500 million of underpayments in that year.[6] Customer error resulted in overpayments of £1.1 billion, and underpayments of £800 million in 2009-10.[7]

Figure 1: The extent of fraud and error in the benefits system


3. The Department launched a five-year strategy for tackling error in January 2007 which included an emphasis on training and support for staff and informing customers of their responsibilities.[8] Despite this, levels of error have remained constant over the past few years.[9] Figure 2 shows that between 2006-07 and 2009-10, there was no sustained decrease in the level of over or underpayments due to administrative and customer error, taken as a percentage of total benefits spending.[10]

Figure 2: Overpayments and underpayments as a result of error

Administrative error as a percentage of benefit expenditure


Source: A C&AG's report, Figure 2

Customer error as a percentage of benefit expenditure


Source: C C&AG report, Figure 4

4. The extent of fraud and error has resulted in the Department's accounts being qualified for the past 22 years. Sir Leigh Lewis, the Permanent Secretary for the Department until his retirement in December 2010, told us that the failure to lift the qualification was the 'biggest single disappointment' of his five years leading the Department.[11] The new Permanent Secretary, Robert Devereux, told us he was now committed to removing the qualification on the accounts.[12]

5. In conjunction with HM Revenue and Customs, the Department published a new joint strategy in October 2010, entitled Tackling fraud and error in the benefit system. The strategy aims to secure a reduction of 25% in the cost of overpayments due to fraud and error over the next four years.[13]

6. The Government has committed to providing the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs an extra £425 million over four years for measures to reduce fraud and error, which the Department believes is sufficient to implement its initiatives.[14] However, the Department does not yet have a clear plan of how it will utilise its funding to reduce the cost of fraud and error, or how it will evaluate the initiatives.[15] The Department's last strategy in January 2007 to reduce fraud and error was not supported by an action plan, although the Department has started to compile an action plan to support the 2010 strategy.[16]

7. The Department's focus on reducing overpayments has meant it has not given sufficient attention to tackling underpayments.[17] The average weekly underpayment detected on Income Support because of customer error was nearly £24, equivalent to 29% of the average weekly payment, which can cause significant financial hardship for claimants.[18] However, the Department does not have a target to reduce underpayments.[19]

2 Q 2 Back

3 C&AG's report, Minimising the cost of administrative errors in the benefit system, para 1; C&AG's report; Reducing errors in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 1 Back

4 C&AG's report, Minimising the cost of administrative errors in the benefit system, HC 569, Session 2010-2011; C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, HC 704, Session 2010-2011 Back

5 C&AG's report, Minimising the cost of administrative errors in the benefit system, para 1.3; C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 1 Back

6 C&AG's report, Minimising the cost of administrative errors in the benefit system, paras 2, 4 Back

7 C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 1.4, pg 14 Back

8 Qq 74, 79, 97; Department for Work and Pensions, Getting welfare right: Tackling error in the benefits system, para 3.36; C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 8, pg 6 Back

9 C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 8, pg 6 Back

10 Qq 44-48; C&AG's report, Minimising the cost of administrative errors in the benefit system, para 11; C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 1.6, pg 16 Back

11 Q149 Back

12 Q160 Back

13 Qq 164-166, 168, 176-179; The Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC: Tackling fraud and error in the benefit and tax credit systems, October 2010, para 15, pg 14 Back

14 Qq 20, 23, 141, 173; The Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC: Tackling fraud and error in the benefit system Back


15 Qq 165-174 Back

16 C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 17; Ev 36 Back

17 Qq 227-28 Back

18 C&AG's report, Reducing losses in the benefits system caused by customers' mistakes, para 11 Back

19 Qq 227-245 Back