seeingclearly wrote:
This is at the heart of why I was asking a few weeks ago, " Where is all the money going?", because already existing or not that 'money' is being identified and removed from public view. THe above seems to indicate that GO calls the shots on this, in cahoots with Cameron, but it doesnt equate to normal accounting, watching a PAC meeting is a bizarre experience, few answer are ever extracted from ministers on real figures, and their frustration is palpable, especially on the subject of the sale of public assets. Don't ask for examples, I haven't that kind of memory, I retain a flavour of these meetings, not the meat and veg, but an obvious person who others will have watched is IDS, there was in coalition days Gove, but others too. I've got my own ideas on this, because theres something that is really not right about this, but would like to know what others think.
I'm a bit discombobulated by it all too, SC.
Universal Credit is a case in point - it was supposed to cost £2 Billion. Just £2 Billion - to completely change the social security system, involving not just DWP benefits (JSA, ESA/IB, and IS) but also to change how Housing Benefit and in-work benefits are paid, and by which department - this shake-up has been estimated by IT experts to be likely to cost more than £12 Billion.
It was also - originally - said by Freud that it would bring £50 Billions'-worth of "benefits" to the economy; he has since said £7 Billion....
by "benefits" I assume he means profits, as he certainly doesn't mean what's paid to what he calls "stock".
Since the whole debacle started, there has been no real accounting as far as I can see. There have been write-offs, write-downs, re-sets, various tranches of roll-outs that were supposed to happen and didn't - and nobody knows what it has all cost.
PIP is another one - Atos and Capita were given £650 Million to get it started, long before any actual PIP was paid (which will be accounted for separately, apparently) and I wonder what they've spent the money on.
The project started in April 2013; by June 2014 the PAC described it as "nothing short of a fiasco"; the Disability News Service reported last August that PIP claimants were waiting 5 times longer in areas where Atos has the contract than those in Capita's areas.
CAB have had 150,000 requests for help about PIP in the past year - from queries on eligibility to support for appeals.
Why has Maximus been given double the money Atos got for conducting Work Capability Assessments - £650 Million over 3 years - and Atos is still getting £10M for supplying the IT to Maximus for this as it owns/leases the LIMA software.
Maximus inherited a backlog of 700,000 people who had not had their first WCA when they took over in October 2014 - DWP had already stopped repeat WCAs the previous April; there are no recent figures for Maximus that I can find.
This left many people stuck on Assessment Phase rates much longer than would usually be the case - as it probably saved millions, where did all that cash go?
When you add it all up - and include the Work Programme (£7 Billion), Universal Jobmatch (£17 Million start-up plus an annual fee of £5 Million), all the above, and stuff I can't think of right now, IDS has spent billions and billions on all this and not one penny of it has gone to a claimant.
By the end of 2014, IDS spent £150 Million on legal representation for the many appeals he has lodged with various courts - in 2013, 6 months after he brought in the Under Occupation Penalty, he sent a round-robin email to all local authorities instructing them to inform DWP if any claimant appealed against their bedroom tax so that he could lodge a counter-appeal.
I watch the PAC - and the SSSC - sometimes. I get so angry I have to turn it off - the committee members do not ask tough enough questions as a rule, and on the odd occasion when one slips through IDS or one of his apparitchiks treats it with utter contempt or a mouthful of total bollockspeak. How I miss Anne Begg, Sheila Gilmore, and Glenda Jackson.
Assuming this sort of nonsense goes on in the scrutiny of other departments, there's a lot of creative accounting gong on.....