Flawed Coalition figures claim crime is down. What about fraud (George Osborne)?

Shock revelations: Police using iPads demonstrate to Home Secretary Theresa May and Prime Minister David Cameron  that they can't stop Vox Political publishing the facts about their so-called government.

Shock revelations: Police using iPads demonstrate to Home Secretary Theresa May and Prime Minister David Cameron that they can’t stop Vox Political publishing the facts about their so-called government.

It must be a brutal blow for the Coalition government, after announcing that crime has dropped by a respectable amount, to then have to admit that a large chunk of fraud has been omitted from the figures.

“Crimes recorded by police in England and Wales have fallen by 7 per cent in the year ending March 2013, according to the Office for National Statistics,” stated the BBC, proudly acting once again as the Coalition’s mouthpiece.

At around the same time Jeremy Browne, the Minister of State for Crime Prevention, was telling us about mistakes at Action Fraud, which now receives all reports of fraud on behalf of all police forces in England and Wales: “Between November 2012 and July 2013, 2,490 reports (of which 1,738 were reports of crime) were not processed correctly due to a fault in the IT system,” he reported.

Oh dear – another cock-up.

By now, the people of Britain should be used to this sort of behaviour from an administration that once promised to be the most open government in history. Fraud is up, they say? How unsurprising – it seems one is being perpetrated on us right now.

The report from the Office for National Statistics estimated that “there were 8.6 million crimes in England and Wales, based on interviews with a representative sample of households and resident adults in the year ending March 2013”. This represents a nine per cent decrease compared with the previous year’s survey, and is the lowest estimate since the survey began in 1981 – less than half its peak level, which was in 1995.

But there are several reasons we should treat this result with care. Firstly, we are told the survey began in 1981 – during the first Thatcher (Conservative) government – and the amount of crime it measured peaked 14 years later, in 1995 – during the Major (Conservative) government. In other words, during all those years of Conservative rule, crime just kept getting worse and worse.

Also, under the Labour governments of 1997-2010, crimes committed fell from around 17 million to around nine million – a drop of about 48 per cent. In the last year of that government alone, crime fell by nine per cent, according to the British Crime Survey. Today’s result could very well be building on Labour achievements and have nothing to do with the Coalition, which has been cutting police numbers (and logically police effectiveness).

Finally, recorded crime totalled 3.7 million offences in the year up to March 2013 – less than half the Crime Survey for England and Wales’ estimate of the total number of crimes. If they’re not recording crimes, they’re not investigating them – so this means more than half of the crimes committed in this country appear to be going unpunished.

That’s not a good record.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, was quick to claim responsibility for the apparent improvement. She said: “Our police reforms are continuing to deliver results across the country with falls in crime in every police force in England and Wales.

“Recorded crime is down by more than 10 per cent under this government, and the independent survey shows that the public’s experience of crime is at its lowest level since records began. This is a significant achievement.

“Police forces have shown an impressive ability to rise to the challenge of making savings while still cutting crime. This government has played its part by slashing red tape and scrapping targets to enable the police to focus on crime fighting.

“We have encouraged chief constables to make savings in back offices to give renewed focus on the frontline and we are seeing the benefits of those efficiencies. We have also set up a College of Policing to ensure the police are better equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to fight crime.

“England and Wales are safer than they have been for decades, but we will continue to improve our national crime fighting capability when the National Crime Agency is fully operational later this year.”

Another national agency? Let’s hope it does better than the one dealing with fraud. Back to Mr Browne: “This issue came to light too late to notify the Office for National Statistics for inclusion in Crime in England and Wales for the year ending March 2013, published today.

“As part of routine revisions to the data, any corrections will be included by the Office for National Statistics in next quarter’s crime publications.”

He said: “Action Fraud has taken immediate action to process the affected reports and will be writing to apologise to everyone who submitted a report and to make clear that their report is now being dealt with.”

Vox Political‘s complaint against George Osborne was submitted in December 2012 and is therefore likely to be among the complaints that were overlooked.

It is alleged that he committed fraud by falsely claiming mortgage interest on a farmhouse, a neighbouring paddock, and other land in his Tatton constituency as an allowable expense, stating that he needed the house to perform his duties as an MP. Taxpayers’ money paid the interest on the paddock and the other land, even though they were registered separately with the Land Registry and went unmentioned in his expenses claim.

The apology letter is awaited with great interest. In fact, a letter may soon by winging its way to Action Fraud, just to make sure the matter is not forgotten again!

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15 Comments

  1. aturtle05 July 18, 2013 at 1:25 pm - Reply

    Are you sure the caption to the photo is correct? Surely it should be: As you can see, our figures show that there is a lot of fraud being committed in the London Borough of Westminster by Ministers of the DWP.

  2. murray July 18, 2013 at 2:00 pm - Reply

    One law for those that make them, then another law for the rest.

  3. Michele Witchy Eve July 18, 2013 at 2:04 pm - Reply

    Vox Political’s complaint was submitted in December 2012, surely? I know they are good at Vox but . . . “December 2013”?

  4. […] Flawed Coalition figures claim crime is down. What about fraud (George Osborne)?. […]

  5. […] It must be a brutal blow for the Coalition government, after announcing that crime has dropped by a respectable amount, to then have to admit that a large chunk of fraud has been omitted from the f…  […]

  6. thepositivevoice July 18, 2013 at 2:13 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on thepositivevoice.

  7. leonc1963 July 18, 2013 at 2:19 pm - Reply

    Like to add our home is mortgaged but not once have we claimed mortgage interest support despite being entitled to why? because we have morals no one told us to buy this house we did because we felt at the time that was the way to go and thus it was our decision why should the taxpayer help us to pay a mortgage we alone chose to take out? I can hold my head high knowing it was brought and paid for by me and my good wife.

  8. leonc1963 July 18, 2013 at 2:20 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Diary of an SAH Stroke Survivor.

  9. Jonathan Wilson July 18, 2013 at 2:35 pm - Reply

    Sadly a “crime” is not a crime unless is the right type of crime to “be recorded” with all sorts of fiddling and down grading of crimes so police chiefs and the stupidly wasteful and idiotic PCC’s can look good.

    PC arrives at a mugging, 30 quid was taken. Logs it in as such, duty officer queries it and down grades it to theft with menace, Bernad-hrypen-Wowe sees it and down grades it to pickpocketing, finally PCC down grades it to “fell out the back pocket”

    Everyone is happy, PCC happy as crimes “have fallen” under his watch so he looks good and can keep on the gravy time come next election… B–H looks good so he doesn’t get sacked by PCC and can keep on the gravy train, DO looks good as his “patch” is so much better than a’n’others division patch so he keeps his job and looks set for a promotion…

    Meanwhile, PC has to tell Mr Pleb theres nothing that can be done as no resources allocated, Mr Pleb is so tramuatised that he looses his job through depression and stress; his insurace policy doesn’t cover “loss from back pocket” so he’s SOL.. he gets asessed by Atos who say he’s fit for work and must claim JSA, JSA department say hes to ill to work so can’t claim JSA…

    Mr Pleb commits suicide after loosing his house and everything he’d work for years to acquire (he also wishes he’d never voted con’s in 2010) the DWP mark this down “as a positive benefit outcome” on its stat file…

    The PC laments the state of things but knows there’s nothing that can be done as his pay and conditions have been cut again and he must make the mortgage payments and he is not allowed to strike, and besides he knows that the G$S have already said to the PCC that they can do the work of officers using the DWP’s workfare “clients” for a tidy profit and a few back handers that no one will ever find out about as the “fraud office” was privatised and is now owned by G$S so any attempts to process fraud claims will be “mislabeled and lost in the backlog.”

    And the NAO and covernment will get the BBC to tell everyone that “crime is down.”

    Meanwhile tractor production is up again and the war is going well.

    • Workhouse July 18, 2013 at 3:30 pm - Reply

      Spot on, Jonathon Wilson, well written and so very true. My only criticism, would be that you forgot to mention that the chocolate ration has gone up to 20gms. Double plus good.

  10. jeffrey davies (@jeffrey33333) July 18, 2013 at 9:24 pm - Reply

    you got to be joking they in power are the fraudenly ones and the bankers all should be looked up for good

  11. b-b-p July 19, 2013 at 1:07 pm - Reply

    BROKEN BRITISH POLITICS – OSBORNE LOOKING AFTER CHUMS
    Osborne stated today that generous Tax Breaks worth multi millions will be offered to Fracking Companies – the same Breaks other Multi National Companies enjoy courtesy of the British Tax payer .Osborne is above his station he is an administrator not a Colonial Governor giving the Greed culture more money earned from the backs of workers.More lies from the BS Government – the Bill to tighten up Lobbying ,it will affect 1% of the lowest Lobbyists .Crime Down – only because of the CUTS ,crimes investigated are recorded us peasants get a non recorded crime number hence the reduction .£10 Billion boost to the economy for 2012 the reason the Olympics and Business – who comes up with this BS the Olympics cost £12 Billion and more small Businesses have gone to the wall than at any other time .This Government are a total failure and rely on BS Lies and Deceit to muddle on while we the Public suffer.brokenbritishpolitics.simplesite.com

  12. […] Perhaps it was one of the fraud matters that got lost by computer error. […]

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