Administration

Into which this government should be placed!

The Daily Telegraph has an article headlined 'Overpaid benefits cannot be recovered' which details the fact that £2.6bn of taxpayers money has been lost to fraud and errors in benefit payments in the year 2007-2008. The Department of Work and Pensions is reported to have sent out 65,000 letters claiming monies back, which three judges at the Court of Appeal ruled cannot be claimed back where the cause is due to error and not misrepresentation or fraud.

The same paper (no link) also reports on the fact the Rural Payments Agency, which makes payments to farmers, has been described as a 'masterclass' of bad administratin that could result in more the £620million of tax-payers money being wasted. This story has been picked up by the Yorkshire Post who state "The National Audit Office (NAO) today takes the rare step of accusing the Government and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) of showing "scant regard for the protection of public money" as it warns the system is costing more and more with few improvements in value for money."

It is obvious that where public money is concerned, whether it being used by politicians to pay the country's bills or whether it is used to pay themselves, politicians don't really seem to care how it is spent!