Hello merry readers... Bozo is back from cape Town.
Sadly...
I think we all welcome the idea that the government plans to crackdown on benefit fraud.
I do... after all benefit fraud is theft.
No one can condone it - it gives the needy a bad name.
I do have a concern though...
Many retailers operate a no-quibble money back policy. For the following very simple reason.
1 per cent of their customers are trying to defraud them - and they don't want to piss off 99% of people in order to stop the 1%. The bean counters have told them that this would be worse for sales than the gain from fraud prevention.
The civil service, by its own admission creates more loss to the tax payer from un-forced errors than is lost to fraudsters.
Asda think its wrong to lose 1% of customers by offending them trying to catch 1% who are defrauding them.
So is it right to falsely accuse 1% of genuine benefit claimants while trying to catch 1% of fraudsters?
Given the errors in the civil service can we be sure we will be accusing the right people?
This bears some thinking about... eliminating benefit fraud is a worthy cause, and politically safe... i just want to think about the cost to the genuine claimant.
After all we already gave RBS a gazillion times more money than we lose to benefit fraudsters... didn't we? And we havent accused anyone at RBS of fraud have we?
And surely the options at RBS are simple - fraud or stupidity.
So if we are deciding the chaps at RBS were stupid rather than fraudulent - why did they still pay a gazillion in bonuses? why werent more senior managers sacked for this stupidity?
My point is this.
We give the benefit of the doubt to senior management at RBS on 6 and 7- figure salaries.
But we won't give it to benefit claimants who might be living on the poverty line?
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