Boris Johnson’s comments staged on the BBC Question Time last night could be just a stunt. It could be. In context,m however, it is hardly a stunt.
AADHIKARonline © ©Muhammad Haque London Commentary
0550 Hrs GMT
London Friday 01 April 2011.
Boris takes a risky step to unsettle Cameron AND [Boris hopes] stop Ken Livingstone in HIS tracks
Boris Johnson’s comments staged on the BBC Question Time last night could be just a stunt. It could be. In context,m however, it is hardly a stunt. It is most likely a calculated step by Boris Johnson to strike when the rod is still red hot and can burn where it needs to: Cameron’s complacent careerist hind site!
This weekend domestically seems set now to include Boris Johnson, badly shaken by last weekend’s poll findings showing him staring at defeat by Ken Livingstone.
However strategically useful the stunt may turn out to be, the fact still remains that Boris Johnson is no Michael Moore! Contrary to his opportunistic suggestions that he was an American by birth, Boris Johnson remains quintessentially calculating and therefore a very very sheepish politico. He will not tell the truth any more than Complacent complicit Cameron or the pernicious Nick Clegg.
The truth is that Boris has failed to address the economic, social,environmental issues facing people in the East End of London. In that failure, Boris Johnson has been as irrelevant and contemptuous to the people as had been Ken Livingstone! No wonder Boris is increasingly looking like the capricious courtier of the “Muzzle-em” votes! “Muzzle ‘em” as in KEEP THE MUZZLEMS a peg or pegs below par and keep them looking up to me [Boris]. Just the way Livingstone did. And with this diabolically unfunny intervention in which Boris successfully APPEARS to almost identify with the people of the Muslim [Arabic speaking] countries. Given that this is at the height of the ‘West’s latest war on yet another defiant ‘Arab’ head of state, Boris has cultivated quite a lot of votes already!
Contemptible!
Crass!
Boris has still not accounted for his servitude to Big Biz agenda Crossrail scam pushers. Nor has he explained why he is touting for the Nuclear lobby. Nor why he has been so miserable in addressing the biggest issue that London public has faced for 80 years: the oppressive lack of civil liberties in London today..! [To be continued]
2606th Edition.
1105 Hrs GMT London Sunday 05 October 2014
AADHIKAR Media Foundation.Editor©Muhammad Haque London E1 UK. AADHIKARMEDIA Foundation supporting KHOODEELAAR! Defending the community in the East End of London, including KHEYDAIEELAAR! ‘Keep Banglatown’ IN. In association with 62+non-profit initiatives active 53rd year: The KAY JORDAN FOUNDATION, All Volunteers News, Brick Lane Community
Friday, 1 April 2011
Kay Jordan's sustainable community in the East End of London. an UPDATE NEXT
Kay Jordan's sustainable community in the East End of London. an UPDATE NEXT
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
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
Does David Cameron have a clue as to how much fraud goes on in the Government Departments?
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/
Launched in the morning of Saturday 12 March 2011
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
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/
Launched in the morning of Saturday 12 March 2011
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
Too many professionals in positions of ‘official authority’ are lying about people and are destroying lives.
UPDATE on Ian Tomlinson
2340 [2335] [2330] Hrs GMT
London
Thursday
31 March 2011.
Editor © Muahmmad Haque.
Disgraced 'Dr' Patel [pictured in glasses] acting as a pathologist, gave false cause of death on Ian Tomlinson, the Tower Hamlets [Isle of Dogs] resident who was killed in April 2009 during the G20 demonstration in the City. Mr Tomlinson’s family still wait to know what really happened. Just how hard it is to get justice in England has been seen at every stage so far since the newspaper vendor from the ordinary parts of the East End’s Dockhands was killed in the City of London on that fateful occasion of the demonstration against the G20 leaders’; ‘summit’ being hosted by then UK Premier Gordon Brown. As AADHIKARonline has exclusively revealed within minutes of the report, the Ian Tomlinson death was DISMISSED on the BBC News Channel by the presenter of the evening’s news bulletins, Chris Eakin. Eakin repeatedly said that Ian Tomlinson's [he did not name Mr Tomlinson the victim at first] had ATTACKED Police and as a result of a clash THAT followed, Mr Tomlinson. Of course that was a blatant untruth and a lie. So who was responsible for that outrageous attack on the victim within literally minutes of the innocent man’s death? [To be continued]
London
Thursday
31 March 2011.
Editor © Muahmmad Haque.
Disgraced 'Dr' Patel [pictured in glasses] acting as a pathologist, gave false cause of death on Ian Tomlinson, the Tower Hamlets [Isle of Dogs] resident who was killed in April 2009 during the G20 demonstration in the City. Mr Tomlinson’s family still wait to know what really happened. Just how hard it is to get justice in England has been seen at every stage so far since the newspaper vendor from the ordinary parts of the East End’s Dockhands was killed in the City of London on that fateful occasion of the demonstration against the G20 leaders’; ‘summit’ being hosted by then UK Premier Gordon Brown. As AADHIKARonline has exclusively revealed within minutes of the report, the Ian Tomlinson death was DISMISSED on the BBC News Channel by the presenter of the evening’s news bulletins, Chris Eakin. Eakin repeatedly said that Ian Tomlinson's [he did not name Mr Tomlinson the victim at first] had ATTACKED Police and as a result of a clash THAT followed, Mr Tomlinson. Of course that was a blatant untruth and a lie. So who was responsible for that outrageous attack on the victim within literally minutes of the innocent man’s death? [To be continued]