Before I go any further I want to say that I deplore benefit cheats. By that I don’t mean the lad that takes a fiver for cutting his neighbour’s lawn, or gets a day wallpapering with his uncle and fails to declare it to the tax authorities or the dole.
I'm talking about constent cheats who claim for children they don’t have, or (and this is a particularly bad one at the moment) take a council house which they do not use, and on which they get a complete rebate while they live with their girlfriends.... all in order to maximize her benefits.
Or the guy who works all week and get’s paid under the counter, avoiding tax and national insurance and claims JSA, housing benefit and every single thing that he can and who is nothing more or less than a thief.
So I was delighted to hear that the government is going to clamp down on this crime, which, in an article for the Manchester Evening News, Mr Cameron tells us costs over £5 billion a year.
He makes it clear tha
t he thinks that this is outrageous and he will not stand for it. The money, he says could be used to employ 150,000 nurses or build 200 new schools.... neither of which, of course, is what will happen to it. It will actually be used to help plug the gaping hole in the finances caused by people at quite the opposite end of the financial and social scale.
However Mr Cameron says that it is a key part of restoring Britain’s battered finances. At £5 billion, it can hardly be “key”, given that the debt is measured in trillions, but hey... what’s in word.
I’m less pleased that Mr Cameron’s chosen method of recovering this money is to employ credit checking agencies, who will take on a large number of untrained workers at or close to minimum wage and set them to go through the financial affairs of everyone who collects any kind of benefit. As there are all kinds of cheats, I imagine that child benefit will also be checked. In short a large number of people’s details will be available to be lost or stolen by an army low wages staff. (OK, I can’t guarantee that they will be on low wages, but what do you think they’ll be paid?)
I’m wondering why, given the number of civil servants who will have to be made redundant, he can’t give them the resources; they already have the records.
One of the difficulties of paying private companies by result is that they MUST get results. And get results they do. By hook or by... and this is the “key” word....crook.
If David Cameron wants to make a bigger dent in the country’s mountain of debt, he might do well to start looking at closing the loopholes in the taxation laws that allow the rich to dodge tax and cost the country an estimated sum in excess of £25 billion a year. Together with the take from benefit cheats, the BBC and parliaments and councils the length and breadth of the UK that would be a “key” part of restoring Britain’s finances.
I'm talking about constent cheats who claim for children they don’t have, or (and this is a particularly bad one at the moment) take a council house which they do not use, and on which they get a complete rebate while they live with their girlfriends.... all in order to maximize her benefits.
Or the guy who works all week and get’s paid under the counter, avoiding tax and national insurance and claims JSA, housing benefit and every single thing that he can and who is nothing more or less than a thief.
So I was delighted to hear that the government is going to clamp down on this crime, which, in an article for the Manchester Evening News, Mr Cameron tells us costs over £5 billion a year.
He makes it clear tha
t he thinks that this is outrageous and he will not stand for it. The money, he says could be used to employ 150,000 nurses or build 200 new schools.... neither of which, of course, is what will happen to it. It will actually be used to help plug the gaping hole in the finances caused by people at quite the opposite end of the financial and social scale.However Mr Cameron says that it is a key part of restoring Britain’s battered finances. At £5 billion, it can hardly be “key”, given that the debt is measured in trillions, but hey... what’s in word.
I’m less pleased that Mr Cameron’s chosen method of recovering this money is to employ credit checking agencies, who will take on a large number of untrained workers at or close to minimum wage and set them to go through the financial affairs of everyone who collects any kind of benefit. As there are all kinds of cheats, I imagine that child benefit will also be checked. In short a large number of people’s details will be available to be lost or stolen by an army low wages staff. (OK, I can’t guarantee that they will be on low wages, but what do you think they’ll be paid?)
I’m wondering why, given the number of civil servants who will have to be made redundant, he can’t give them the resources; they already have the records.
One of the difficulties of paying private companies by result is that they MUST get results. And get results they do. By hook or by... and this is the “key” word....crook.
If David Cameron wants to make a bigger dent in the country’s mountain of debt, he might do well to start looking at closing the loopholes in the taxation laws that allow the rich to dodge tax and cost the country an estimated sum in excess of £25 billion a year. Together with the take from benefit cheats, the BBC and parliaments and councils the length and breadth of the UK that would be a “key” part of restoring Britain’s finances.
The picture at the bottom is of Mr and Mrs Jones who diddled £10,000 on a housing scam, rather like "Lord" Paul and "Lady" Udden, but without the benefit of being above the law, of course. The one at the top is a lovely puppy, with some strange old man!!!!
