Who owns the U.K. welfare? Who profits from it?

As im sure you know, the big bad people at J.P. Morgan make money fom every welfare check and foodstamp used. This is not a surprise, but the implications are massive. A large company that benfits from unemployment.

Try as i might, i cannot find out who 'owns' the U.K version of welfare. Directgov is the branded name that covers U.K welfare, but its proving difficult to trace the financial owners or beneficiaries.

Anyone else wondr if we have the same sort of problem over here, but just dont recognise it yet?

reply to post by Learningman


Having worked within the Benefits system I can tell you that the U.K Taxpayer is responsible solely for payments.

Benefits are administrated though an agency called Jobcentreplus which is part of the Department of Work & Pensions. Payments are made from what the Government call the Social Fund and this is funded through National Insurance payments.

Most payments are made directly to Bank Accounts as this is the cheapest option for the Government with Admin costs running at aboy 1p per transaction. Other forms of payment are Giro, cashable at the Post Office, but the admin costs for this run into the £'s rather than pence.

So apart from Banks and Post Offices, no one else really profits from the U.K Welfare system currently. However, I have a feeling all this will change over the next four years when the Government privatises the system.

Originally posted by Cobaltic1978
reply to post by Learningman

 

I have a feeling all this will change over the next four years when the Government privatises the system.

Does that mean less or more benefits for the poor?

It seems the current government is only aiming to kill off the middle class financially.

reply to post by forklift


It means less. "More" benefits are a thing of the past. Consigned to history

Since securing the government contract to make pensions and benefits payments, PAYPOINT have seen the value of their shares rise;

www.guardian.co.uk...
Post Office loses government contract for pension and benefit payments

www.investegate.co.uk...
PAYPOINT CHOSEN AS PAYMENTS NETWORK FOR CASH PAYMENT OF BENEFITS

www.iii.co.uk...

First stage in the privatisation process?

The overall system is run by the government, however, the IT systems are developed by large multi-national companies who couldn't find their collective asses with a roadmap and satnav.

Essentially the government pays these companies to develop systems at vastly inflated costs that don't work, don't support the user base, and generally fail completely and utterly.

Having failed with one system the same people are almost invariably rehired to produce the next debacle.

Having worked as an independent consultant on these sort of projects it's soul destroying to see how the civil service just accept whatever crap they're given, they never question anything, and anyone who puts their head above the parapet to point out the obvious flaws in the system design and/or performance is removed with extreme prejudice very quickly.

I was once paid to sit in a room with 5 other analyst programmers and wait for the designers to come up with a design. Until they did all we had to do was do 8 hours a day doing nothing. We read the papers, went for walks, drank lots of tea and coffee, did Kinder Eggs for the excitement. I lasted about a week before I demanded they release me from my contract. The weirdest thing was the other 5 had been there for weeks, and stayed on after I left.

Sheer madness permeates the system.

Originally posted by Rob37n


Sheer madness permeates the system.

Madness? Perhaps utter corruption would be nearer the mark!
I have said for many years that ALL government contracts should be scrutinised by an independent body before anything is signed or money changes hands. I mean, how difficult is it to insert penalty clauses for time and cost overruns? How about instead of having a bunch of senior boardroom types design the requirement by committee, ask the people at the sharp end what the requirement is from day one? I think that applies to just about every system the government has tried to procure in the last few decades.

As for taxpayer funded benefits and their disbersment passing to a private "for profit" corporation, this should be scrapped immediately before we all get fleeced yet again by another flawed scheme, designed to make a few people rich(er) and lose the taxpayer a lot more than it would supposedly save us.

One word - Accountability!

reply to post by Britguy


I agree with every word you say, but it'll never happen. MPs who have partners who run the big companies is one reason. The only independent people you'll ever find are contractors, and IR35 saw a lot of them off. We're stuck with the existing corrupt system, and the more you look the worse it gets. Yet the same companies keep getting the work!

I was told by one civil servant that the reason they keep going back to the same people is that one day they'll have learned from their experiences and will get it right first time. I went home early that day and charged for the whole day, I was too depressed for words.

Mps are just fodder for the cameras we all know who really owns the money and the power.

Originally posted by Learningman
As im sure you know, the big bad people at J.P. Morgan make money fom every welfare check and foodstamp used. This is not a surprise, but the implications are massive. A large company that benfits from unemployment.

Try as i might, i cannot find out who 'owns' the U.K version of welfare. Directgov is the branded name that covers U.K welfare, but its proving difficult to trace the financial owners or beneficiaries.

Anyone else wondr if we have the same sort of problem over here, but just dont recognise it yet?

edit on 9/3/2011 by Learningman because: Sp.

Well those who can't be bothered to work, who act as baby factories and who have no respect for anyone or anything are the ones who benefit from the system.

Those who work - especially those who are self employed - are the losers as we end up paying for the parasites

reply to post by DEV1L79


But increasingly, information means power also. Its big business to survey and monitor what people do, like the current census here in the uk, being conducted by Lockheed Martin.

Just think how much data can be retreived by the DWP. Everything has to be signed, everything is basically a survey, and for most benefits there is a sytem that requires updates of your address, cash inflow, savings, time spent working, time sick, time on holiday, change of contact details, even medical updates. I just thaught that this info could be valuable to more people that the Department for Work and Pensions.

reply to post by teapot


I wasn't aware of this to be fair, as I have not worked there for several years. I left when the Government brought in Tax Credits and gave responsibility to HMRC and they made such a balls up of it. I could see where it was going and decided that was enough for me. I managed a team that had to give advice regarding Tax Credits and the information changed on a daily basis. No one could get their heads around it and people were left waiting months for payments and would inevitably find themselves in debt.

The last Conservative Government did apply a 'Market Test' to the whole administration of Benefits, but companies who looked at delivering this realised that there was no way that they could deliver it at the same costs and not make a BIG fat profit.

Maybe BIG corporations develop I.T solutions, but that is because the Government does not have their own specific department to deal with this. However, from my experience, the Government usually go for the cheapest option initially, only to find that it is not fit for purpose and then have to find Millions more in order to facilitate the required package. This is usually down to the Government not employing experts in this field, simply because they cannot compete with BIG corporations salaries.

reply to post by forklift


I do not agree with this. The Government are looking to destroy working class and middle class alike. Benefits are to be cut, and in some instances I fully concur with their sentiments. However, genuine people are being targeted too, and this is unfair.

I can appreciate most people think it is only right that people should be made to work regardless of their circumstances, but in some instances it is impossible. The biggest con in all of this, all of the cutbacks, tightening of belts etc, is that we will not be paying any less in taxes. In fact we will be paying more taxes for less services. If anybody can see the fairness in this please feel free to explain!!! I am all ears, honestly.

I'll tell you who loses on the opposite end of the scale. People like me who are long term unemployed due to illness (my last bosses fired me for having too much time off work despite being under doctor's and hospital orders to be at home during a cancer scare) which brought back my depression big time, still having extreme difficulty with that.

I'm poor, barely manage to feed myself yet am having the threat of benefits taken away despite doctors and medical professionals saying I'm not anywhere near ready to interact with other people much less work while those who have constant babies are handed everything.

Did you know the genuinely ill are scrutinised and asked for proof of their illness every step of the way while drug addicts get disability benefits and are left alone by the DWP?

That's why although I love this new Government, I despise the DWP and its seeming hatred for genuinely needy people.

reply to post by curious7


i don't understand how you can love the Government, who are making the laws regarding Benefit payments and eligibility etc, yet hate the department who are mainly faceless bureaucrats who merely implement the laws.

I genuinely feel for your plight, but it is the government who has made the decision to make the cuts. If your hatred should be aimed at anyone, then it should be the following three people at the very least: Ian Duncan Smith (Secretary of Work & Pensions), George Osbourne (Bilderberg Chancellor of the Exchequer) and David Cameron (Prime Minister). Your vitriol could also be aimed at the Lib Dems who are really Tories, i.e Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


My hate is for the Labour government I helped oust by voting for the first time in my adult life to get the Conservatives back in power to clean up the mess we were left in. They were the ones who started this eligibility a few years ago and unfortunately, until David Cameron etc can make sufficient changes, we're stuck with it.

The cuts I can deal with and I'm not gonna jump on the bandwagon of hating the Conservatives or the tag-along Lib Dems with their stupid policies and ideas for doing something that was inevitable after the Labour spending sprees.

reply to post by curious7


I'm sorry, but you are totally wrong on the single parent issue. It wasn't Labour that started it, it was the previous Conservative Government. In fact Labour realised that the whole system was in a mess and targeted this group for immediate reform.

Under the previous Conservative Government, single Mother's with children under the age of sixteen could claim Benefit without looking for work until their Children left education.

Labour addressed this by ensuring single Mother's were actively seeking work and available for work for at least sixteen hours per week once their children reached the age of five.

Single Mother's are not fully to blame for the mess of the welfare system. Housing Benefit is the single benefit that costs the system the most. This is also the fault of the Conservative government. They allowed the right to buy for council tenants. This reduced the available stock to councils (they were not able to build additional housing) and eventually the majority of these houses were sold to private landlords. These landlords then rented the properties at over inflated prices because of loopholes in the housing benefit system. This Government has decided to address this by bringing in a maximum rent despite where the property is situated, something Labour should have done, but couldn't without deserting their core supporters i.e working class.

If anything we should berate the Labour Government for their involvement in the wars throughout their reign and not so much the welfare system. The wars along with the banking crisis has brought this country to its knees. Is it any coincidence that the two countries hit the worse and struggling to come out of the recession is the U.K and U.S?

Just a note, this is on the subject of who owns the various departments of the DWP. Please keep political references relevant

There is a company called Capita, that was heavily involved in outsourcing, and if I recall correctly the Chief Exec was a buddy of Tony Blair. As with most Labour contracts the Chiefs and Politico's had some kind of relationship. DWP also spent a lot on "training" and "back to work" programmes, which I'm sure, if investigated, would yield a link to Labour politicians.

reply to post by DSSONE


Thanks for your input DSSONE

Best info so far.