Headline:
TAX NEWS: Government watchdog attacks tax credits 'incompetence'
Description:
Problems with Gordon Brown's flagship tax credits system are due to "sociological incompetence", the UK's most senior public spending watchdog has claimed.
Sir John Bourne, head of the National Audit Office (NAO), said the chancellor's frequent policy changes are to blame for the "unacceptably high" losses to tax credit fraud and overpayment errors.
Speaking to 'The Sunday Telegraph', he said: "If you constantly alter the system, you increase error and fraud. You foster chaos and confusion as claimants and civil servants try to cope with changes that are not thought through."
In what the newspaper described as a "blistering attack" on the chancellor, Sir John went on to criticise the practice of overpaying claimants with the premise that the government will ask for the money back.
"The thing about tax credits - and I find this just incredible - is the failure of imagination and sociological competence," he said. "We overpay a lot of poor people who often have trouble managing money. So when we later demand repayment that causes a great deal of anguish."
Sir John added that chancellor's pension credit scheme under which half of all pensioners have become eligible for means testing is a "terrible waste of resources".
In another criticism, the NAO chief said there was "real anger" among officials at the Office of National Statistics that their official data is "often challenged by ministers".
Sir John Bourne, head of the National Audit Office (NAO), said the chancellor's frequent policy changes are to blame for the "unacceptably high" losses to tax credit fraud and overpayment errors.
Speaking to 'The Sunday Telegraph', he said: "If you constantly alter the system, you increase error and fraud. You foster chaos and confusion as claimants and civil servants try to cope with changes that are not thought through."
In what the newspaper described as a "blistering attack" on the chancellor, Sir John went on to criticise the practice of overpaying claimants with the premise that the government will ask for the money back.
"The thing about tax credits - and I find this just incredible - is the failure of imagination and sociological competence," he said. "We overpay a lot of poor people who often have trouble managing money. So when we later demand repayment that causes a great deal of anguish."
Sir John added that chancellor's pension credit scheme under which half of all pensioners have become eligible for means testing is a "terrible waste of resources".
In another criticism, the NAO chief said there was "real anger" among officials at the Office of National Statistics that their official data is "often challenged by ministers".
Date:
28.07.2006
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