Oh dear, Iain Duncan Smith is not having a very good time of it lately,
is he? His handling of the flagship
change to the welfare system, Universal Credit, couldn’t be more universally
discredited as there are IT problems galore, delays and ever-changing
completion dates. The question is, of
course, does this show IDS as he is more commonly referred to (in polite
circles, at least) to be the most inept, incompetent man on the face of the
Earth who is completely out of his depth or does it show him to be a deceitful,
arrogant psychopath with a penchant for murderous social engineering?
Of course, IDS has also drawn a vast amount of criticism for the rest of
the so-called welfare ‘reforms’ that lend themselves to assigning one or other
of our competing titles for the Cabinet member and failed former Conservative
Party leader.
According to experts interviewed on a Channel 4 documentary entitled
“Psychopath Night” that took a look at psychopathic traits and some of the
people who exhibit them, psychopaths have one particular trait – the inability
to admit that they are wrong and the tendency to blame everyone else for
mistakes. I mention this in passing as
that one fact may well help us in determining what IDS really is.
Let’s start off by examining the current situation regarding Universal
Credit...
Universal Credit
On the IT side, software specifically designed for the implementation of
Universal Credit does not include all the features needed to be properly
implemented and cannot be used to handle
claims by couples or people with children.
There is also an issue around the problem that the welfare changes are
meant to be sorting out, that of fraudulent claims. The software for the implementation of
Universal Credit, as of September 2013, has no feature to allow for the highlighting of potential fraudulent claims
and is therefore completely reliant on
costly and impractical manual checks.
As of October 2013, only a miniscule 2,720
people were part of the unfortunate few who were selected as pilot claimants
and the cost of the implementation of Universal Credit for that small number is
approximately £225,000
for each claimant currently on the trial. This accounts for £612 million of the total £2 billion budget set aside for the project or
almost a third of the entire budget.
A total of £40 million has been wasted so far
on the software that is barely able to handle a fraction of the claimants it
should be handling by now and a further £90 million is earmarked to
bring the software up to the required level to ably handle the requirements of
Universal Credit.
One million claimants are supposed to be using the
new Universal Credit system by April this year according to projections by the
Department for Work and Pensions made back in October 2013. The system is handling just 2,720 so far.
The target of 6 million claimants using the system by 2017 look set to
be missed catastrophically.
A risk assessment report on the project from October 2013 suggested
that, if the current raft of problems continued only “a maximum of 25,000
people – just 0.2% of all benefit recipients – will be transferred on to the
programme by the next general election”.
The enormity of the colossal cock-up that is Universal Credit and the
massive write-off of taxpayer’s cash was brilliantly summed up by a member of a
Facebook group called WEAR RED - Stand up and Be counted:
“In December 2013 IDS
also revealed that a staggering £90 million will be written off by 2018. Again
we're not sure how you would spend this on UK infrastructure? But it's
painfully obvious that you'd be doing a better job than IDS, even if you chose
to make a bonfire out of the cash just to keep your kids warm for an evening.
The point being that at least one person had benefited in some small way from
your act of madness.”
In a Mirror newspaper article
dated 5th February, Shadow Welfare minister Chris Bryant was quoted
as having said:
“Iain Duncan Smith’s
flagship policy has been plagued with delay after delay from the outset and
millions of pounds have been wasted.
“We
were once told Universal Credit would be on time and on budget and that a
million people would be on the system by April this year, but this has come to
nothing. It is staggering that the Government has spent £225,000 per person on
this project.
“With
poor initial decisions by Ministers and endless indecision from Downing Street
putting the whole scheme in jeopardy, it is increasingly difficult to have any
confidence in the Government’s handling of welfare.”
The only response that came
from IDS was via a spokeswoman that is the typical non-answer we’ve come to
expect from him and the empty statement that everything would be on track by
2017: “If Labour think Universal Credit
can be brought in without spending any money up front it’s no wonder they cost
taxpayers so much by botching the introduction of tax credits so badly.
“Over
6 million people will be claiming Universal Credit by 2017, which will bring a
£35billion benefit to society, and our safe rollout continues with more people
claiming every day.”
The DWP
select committee affair
IDS hasn’t just upset or
offended the members of the public who are both taking notice of what’s going
on and have a social conscience, he has taken it upon himself to deliberately
withhold information from members of the Select Committee that has the duty to scrutinize
his department. He has also tried to lay
the blame for the Universal Credit at the feet of DWP permanent secretary
Robert Devereux so that he could wash his hands of his responsibility.
In his piece entitled “Why should we endure this disrespect from a
public servant?”, blogger Mike Sivier from Vox
Political quoted the words spoken by Commons Work
and Pensions committee member Debbie Abrahams to Secretary of State Iain Duncan
Smith during a clash over Universal Credit and his Department for Work and
Pensions’ appalling book-keeping: “I can say with the strongest feeling my concern about the
hubris you have demonstrated and your tone to this committee. You haven’t
explained – certainly to my own satisfaction, and I am sure anybody that has
been watching will draw their own conclusions – you have not made any
satisfactory explanation about how you have informed, and kept this committee
informed, about the difficulties that the Department was experiencing. There
has been obfuscation, smoke-and-mirrors, even up to a few weeks before the
report from the National Audit Office. The memorandum that was released in
August was clearly saying that everything was fine and dandy. It is, clearly,
not. I’ll give you one more opportunity to answer, so you can explain to this
committee why there is such poor information provided by your Department.”
Duncan Smith’s response shows
just how arrogant the man is: “Well, I
just don’t agree with you, and I don’t agree that we have done anything else
but be open and honest about what the issues are, as and when they have been identified,
and what we would do about them, as and when we had made our decisions about
that.”
IDS showed a shocking lack of
respect when asked why he did not inform the committee of the ‘red team review’
of Universal Credit when he gave evidence to the committee back in September
2012, stating that: “With respect, I
don’t have to tell you everything that is happening in the Department until we
have reached a conclusion about what’s actually happening; I think I will take
those decisions myself and account for the decisions that were taken.”
Unable to even keep his own
story straight in his head IDS got himself in somewhat of a knot when he said
that the review had reported back to him in July of that year, so he could
actually have made a full and formal account of his actions to the committee,
long before September 2012. He tried to
extricate himself by saying that: “It was
an internal review.”
Dame Anne Begg, Chair of the
committee stated that the committee should have been told the plans were being
reviewed as a matter of courtesy, and the September committee meeting would
have been the perfect opportunity to explain that a review had taken place, “but at that session you were bullish about
how successful everything was”, to which Duncan Smith responded: “With respect … I don’t think this committee
can run the Department.” As an
outside observer, I would have to say to Duncan Smith that I don’t think you
can run the department.
Mike Sivier observed in his
blog that “Committee members asked
questions and Duncan Smith treated them with discourtesy bordering on contempt.”
IDS neatly although not
convincingly sidestepped the question of whether the Universal Credit system
was still only handling single people (which, of course, it is) and stated that
the costs so far were “written down” rather than written
off. For those who aren’t fluent in
bullshit, Mike Sivier came to the rescue with the following explanation of “written down”: “meaning they were said to be worth less money now than when they were
introduced”.
As delusional as he is, IDS
was adamant that he and the DWP had not made any mistakes or committed any wrongdoings
despite the fact that his testimony was full of evidence to the contrary.
In one particularly rude
exchange, Duncan Smith told Glenda Jackson MP that “I have no idea what you’re asking… You lost me about five minutes ago.”
Her reply was to tell Duncan Smith that “You’ll
have to try harder” as he rudely muttered that her question “sounds like a foreign language to me”. Now, judging by one of her appearances on Have
I Got News For You, I know that Ms Jackson may get a little confusing
at times but she’s hardly speaking a foreign language; however, English may
well be a foreign language to Duncan Smith whose main language is delusional
bullshit.
Mike Sivier summed up the
entire affair quite succinctly:
“The
information content of this meeting was zero – or as close to it as possible.
What we got was a display of posturing, “hubris” – as Debbie Abrahams rightly
identified it – and further obfuscation of the facts.
“What the meeting did reveal was everything we need to know about Iain
Duncan Smith. Here is a man who understands nothing about being a public
servant. He thinks that, sitting in a plush Whitehall office, with civil
servants running around clearing up his various disasters, that he is somehow
above the rest of us and doesn’t have to justify himself.
“He’s completely mistaken. He is there as our servant – to act in a way
that suits us, not him. It is disrespectful of him to treat us this way.
“But
he just doesn’t get it.”
Feel free to gauge IDS’
performance for yourself here: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14819
International
Business Times
described the affair as “yet another
ill-tempered session of a key Commons committee with the minister responsible,
Iain Duncan Smith” that fueled fears that the flagship welfare reforms are
in “far deeper trouble than suspected”.
Duncan Smith was, according
to the piece, “accused of deliberately
misleading the committee and attempting to "sweep things under the
carpet" after a series of delays and cost write-offs” on his pet
project.
Further media speculation on
the way Duncan Smith treated the committee members was summed up with the
following quote describing the committee members suggestion that: “Duncan Smith was treating them with
arrogance and haughtiness while he thought they were not bright enough to
understand the detail of his great scheme”.
In a funny addition to the
piece in the International Business
Times mention was made that in a recent book chancellor George Osborne
claimed Duncan Smith was not bright enough for the job. I think that, Osborne, is something akin to
the pot calling the kettle black. I know
it’s a little off-topic but if I can piss off another member of the Government,
I’ll take any opportunity that arises.
International
Business Times suggested
that “while much of the system is not due
to come online until after the next election, Duncan Smith may be preparing to
stand down in 2015 and, in effect, walk away from it”. I don’t think IBT really knows what a zealot
Duncan Smith really is. He will not walk
away from his task until his mission is complete – the wholesale wiping out of
the poor and most vulnerable people in society.
To draw a line under this
section, I include this from website Political Scrapbook which
highlighted some of IDS’ arrogant attitude in a piece entitled “Arrogant Duncan Smith slammed for evading
committee questions” (published on 5th February):
"Following Iain Duncan
Smith’s evidence on Monday, DWP select committee member Glenda Jackson brought a fiery point of order in the
Commons immediately after PMQs earlier. Jackson highlighted the
manner in which the Quiet
Man thinks he can talk to MPs
asking basic questions about Universal Credit:
“With respect, I don’t have
to tell the committee everything that is happening in the department until we
have reached a conclusion about what is actually happening.”
“With respect, chairman, I do
not think this committee can run the department.”
With IDS claiming he had ”nothing to tell” the MPs about experts
drafted in to rescue the
IT underpinning his flagship policy, Commons speaker John
Bercow confirmed that the job of the DWP Committee is to, errr, scrutinise DWP.”
Other welfare facts
Of
course, Universal Credit is not the only change to the welfare system and we
should look at some of the other misdemeanours perpetrated by IDS in order to
determine whether he’s a bungler or a psychopath.
Blogger Sue
Marsh included the following facts in her article entitled “The Big Benefits Row” on her blog Diary of a
Benefits Scrounger:
- Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is
being cut by 20%
- The criteria to qualify for DLA
slashed has been by 60%
- 1 MILLION people are to be stripped
of Employment and Support Allowance
- The Independent Living Fund has been
scrapped
- 1500 people lost their jobs as Remploy
factories were all closed
- Just 3% of the entire welfare budget
goes to unemployed people
- Social security fraud is around £1.2
Billion per year – less than half of 1%, or
- 0.15% of total welfare budget. That’s
just £1.50 lost for every thousand or 0.15% of the total welfare
- The DWP pay out much more in their
own errors – 2.2 Billion
- A whopping £16 BILLION goes
unclaimed, generally to avoid the stigma of “welfare”
- We have some of the toughest
criteria for claiming social security in the developed world.
- Is our UK social security system too
generous? No again. In international terms we come just 46th out of
51, paying some of the lowest benefits anywhere
- 40,000 sick or disabled people will
be hit by the Bedroom Tax. That’s over 2 thirds.
And there are the cases of people who have committed
suicide due to benefit changes or having their benefits taken away completely,
cases such as Stephanie Bottrill who, it turns out, should have been exempt
from the dreaded Bedroom Tax.
Statistics shooting around the internet and the media state
that approximately 10,600 people have
died shortly after their Atos assessment, approximately 73 people a
week. And I have to say that the facts
above hardly lend themselves to the idea that IDS is a bungler.
The Bedroom Tax is a direct attack on the
poorest and most vulnerable because it targets only those Housing Benefit
claimants who live in social housing. True, this
does bring about a parity between social housing renters and those who rent
from the private sector who have had these accommodation size restrictions for
a long time but look at it from this point of view – rents in the private
sector are significantly higher than in the social sector so, as a cost cutting
measure, a size restriction for renters in the private sector makes some kind
of sense. However, social housing rents
are already kept low relative to the housing market so are already value for
money when calculating Housing Benefit.
The trouble being caused by the Bedroom Tax is that the
number of people who are forced to downsize currently outstrips the number of
smaller social housing properties which forces them into the private sector for
smaller properties. This has to be an ideological attack because as a cost cutting measure
it fails the basic test – more money will have to be spent out on Housing
Benefit due to the higher private sector rents, probably more than will be
saved by the Bedroom Tax.
Of course, private landlords will be making out like
bandits because of the increased number of people being forced into the private
sector and I seriously doubt that there aren’t quite a few Tories who aren’t
benefiting from the exodus from social housing to the private sector.
So what’s your verdict? Is IDS an incompetent bungler or is he an
ideologically-driven, arrogant psychopath?
I know which option I choose.
