Tax credits debacle shows Tory government only cares about its public image
![MPs from all parties shared stories of constituents who had been forced into debt [Image: PA].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/160915-tax-credits.png)
MPs from all parties shared stories of constituents who had been forced into debt [Image: PA].
That is why there will be no inquiry into the firm’s failings – having admitted that a private firm working for the government has created undue poverty by its own incompetence, the Tories will want to limit the damage.
Worse still is that the Concentrix contract will run for another eight months, providing plenty of opportunity for further undue interference in the finances of hard-working citizens.
As Labour’s shadow Treasury minister Rebecca Long-Bailey said: “Distressed and anxious constituents, often hard-working individuals… have had their tax credits cut unfairly, pushing them, in many cases, into extreme hardship.
“Now whilst we welcome that HMRC has finally taken action in announcing that the Concentrix contract will not be renewed, it is most regrettable that the government has only done this when events have been dramatically exposed by the media.”
You know what would kill all this incompetence stone dead? A genuine living wage.
The Treasury is refusing to hold an inquiry into the failings of the outsourcing firm Concentrix, despite complaints from both Tory and Labour MPs about the number of people wrongly deprived of tax credits.
Jane Ellison, the financial secretary to the Treasury, confirmed that HM Revenue and Customs had decided not to renew Concentrix’s contract because some of its work had been unacceptable in recent weeks.
In a Commons debate, she was confronted by MPs with dozens of examples of cases in which people had been treated wrongly.
MPs from all parties shared stories of constituents who had been forced into debt and their children refused free school dinners after having their tax credits wrongly stopped.
Source: Treasury refuses to hold inquiry into Concentrix tax credits contract | Politics | The Guardian
ADVERT
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
And the resulting paper trail when this happens is a total nightmare for those effected by these morons actions. These private companies need taking to the Courts or heavily penalised for their total incompetence. Were they rubbish or were they just working to deliver government targets of deliberately cutting folk off from their legal rights and benefits. This could be yet another cover Government agenda of cutbacks. Probably the usual outsourcing route of saving resources by just kicking claims into touch with the hope that most will just disappear and they get by with less employees. How they are still in position just begs the question …..Why? knowing they are out on their backside is never go to make them improve the quality of their decisions in the next 8 months! In fact most commercially minded managers would realise they are a total liability now and would get shot of them asap…..but unfortunately we are dealing with weak HMRC civil servants who most have not got a clue how to run diddly squat so they would rather carry on to the convenient end of contract with this sub standard mob who are ruining real peoples lives….Sod the contract timing, they have failed and need a hard decision sacking better still admit the cock up and lack of hard management of this outsource and rehire the people who did know what they were doing before they were TUPE’D over, bought out or left.
Outsourcing , especially to foreign firms are a win-win situation for the Government.
Something goes wrong it’s the fault of a private overseas company not the Government Department who hired them but acknowledge no blame.
As they are based overseas and private, they are not legally obliged to even answer any FOI enquiries.
Maximus, Atos and all the many others have and will get simply a slap on the wrist but still be given future contracts.
It’s a classic USA concept which although more expensive, it essentially outsources not only the work but more importantly the responsibility for your actions.
Well as Atos demonstrated as soon as the brown smelly stuff hits the whirling object they can just bail out of the contract, although it would have cost the government gazillions to buy out the contract due to their mess ups.