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benefit, benefits, civil servant, civil service, Coalition, committee, computer, Conservative, Department, DWP, education, fraud, government, Iain Duncan Smith, IDS, IT, Job Centre, Margaret Hodge, Michael Gove, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minister, morale, MP, off, Parliament, Pensions, people, pilot, politics, public accounts, returned to unit, Robert Devereaux, RTU, social security, The Guardian, The Spectator, Tories, Tory, unemployment, Universal Credit, Vox Political, welfare, work, write, written
![Don't blame Whitehall: Civil servants are highly-trained experts in their field; Conservative politicians are amateurs with opinions. Who do YOU think is responsible for the cock-up called Universal Credit? [Picture: Daily Telegraph]](https://mikesivier.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/131107blame.jpg)
Don’t blame Whitehall: Civil servants are highly-trained experts in their field; Conservative politicians are amateurs with opinions. Who do YOU think is responsible for the cock-up called Universal Credit? [Picture: Daily Telegraph]
Accused of wasting £140 million of taxpayers’ money on his white elephant Universal Credit scheme (or is it scam?) he can at least take comfort that the latest report followed his lead and fell back on what is now becoming a Conservative Party Standard Excuse: Blame the civil service.
That won’t wash, though. The real reason, as detailed in this blog previously, is lack of interest by Conservative Party ministers like Smith himself.
We call him ‘RTU’ because we believe his incompetence as an Army officer led to him being ‘Returned To Unit’ and eventually shuffled out of the service and it is this history that seems to be repeating itself here.
Let’s have a look at the “alarmingly weak” management for which the Secretary-in-a-State was rightly criticised by the Commons Public Accounts Committee this week.
We know that the project is now well behind schedule, despite protestations to the contrary from RTU and the Department for Work and Pensions. A planned pilot roll-out in April was restricted to just one Job Centre, where they handled only the simplest cases, working them out on spreadsheets because the IT system is open to fraud.
Since then it has been started in Hammersmith, in London, where its success or failure is not yet known.
It is now doubtful whether the project can still be delivered, on-budget, by its 2017 deadline. If it is, what kind of service will it provide?
Of the £2.4 billion set aside, £425 million has already been spent and a sum between £140 million and £161 million is likely to be written off, depending on whose figures you believe.
We know that a secretary was allowed to sign off £23 million worth of purchases because RTU’s systems were so lazy. Does anybody even know what this money bought?
“From the outset, the department has failed to grasp the nature and enormity of the task; failed to monitor and challenge progress regularly; and, when problems arose, failed to intervene promptly,” said Public Accounts Committee chair, Margaret Hodge. She described the system’s implementation as not only poor but “extraordinarily” poor.
And she said the pilot scheme was not a proper pilot, as “It does not deal with the key issues that universal credit must address: the volume of claims; their complexity; change in claimants’ circumstances; and the need for claimants to meet conditions for continuing entitlement to benefit”.
The report by the committee singled out the DWP’s permanent secretary, Robert Devereux, for particular criticism, saying he only became aware of problems in ‘ad hoc’ reviews, because reporting arrangements were inadequate and had not alerted him to problems. Even after he knew of major problems, he did not closely monitor the project, the report stated.
It seems Conservatives on the committee wanted more criticisms to be included, and The Guardian has stated that senior Tories have said they would accept Devereaux’s resignation, if offered.
Let’s face it: we’ve been here before.
Michael Gove’s Education Department is now in a terrible mess because he brought in a gang of “advisors” to operate “above” his officials – who have meanwhile faced huge cuts in their workforce and a disastrous fall in morale. Gove brought his ignorant mates in to force their foolishness on the professionals, as this blog reported in June.
That was when The Spectator weighed in against the civil service, lodging an advance claim that if Universal Credit flops it will be due to the civil service, but if it succeeds it will be a victory for Tory ministers alone.
what a lot of nonsense.
Civil servants do what elected Members of Parliament tell them to do. They pay attention to the wishes of their political leaders and apply their considerable expertise to the problems set for them, in order to produce the required result, within budget, while complying with the strictures laid down by those political leaders.
They are very good at their job.
If they are failing, then the problem must lie with the politicians. If a goal is unrealistic, then blaming the ‘help’ is totally unproductive – it only serves to make them hostile.
And, let’s face it, we’ve all seen sheep with more intelligence than Iain Duncan Smith.
*If you have enjoyed this article, you may wish to consider picking up the book, Vox Political: Strong Words and Hard Times. The site is not professional and receipts from the book are its only means of support. Its 350 pages contain a great deal of information that should be just as useful as this article, and it may be bought here, here, here, here and here – depending on the format in which you wish to receive it.
Mike Sivier's blog 
Disturbingly I don’t think they’re incompetent. Just like Thatcher before them, they know exactly what they’re doing, the fact that what they’re doing is disastrous doesn’t matter, because it only hurts “little people”. You know, people who weren’t born to a family name, mansion, Rolls Royce’s and arrogance.
In the meanwhile it funnels huge amounts of wealth into the tax havens of Millionaires; for a cabinet formed of millionaires that sounds more like purposeful calculation than incompetence.
Universal Cock-Up by the Universal Liar
Get Rid of Him
“And, let’s face it, we’ve all seen sheep with more intelligence than Iain Duncan Smith.”
I’ve seen a dead parrot with more intelligence than IDS
That was an ex-parrot.
Let’s all look forward to the day we can call him an ex-minister.
Do you mean it was a Polygon? hehe
I’m groaning. Let’s not let this descend into parrot jokes, though (please).
Reblogged this on kickingthecat.
He should be sacked with immediate effect and also thrown out of the tory party. However, that won’t happen as I still feel he has something “over” Cameron and this is why he won’t go and can do what the hell he likes and get away with it!
He has got to be pulled up by the tory party as the majority of them can’t stand the arrogant fool, they know that everything he touches turns to dust, or in his case, huge losses of money.
I cannot wait to see the end of him, either through being sacked (which I would really love), or because the tories get kicked out at the next election.
universal cock up by a compulsive liar sack him.
IDS has been told time and time again that UC is not working. He will not listen to experienced staff who have been doing the job a lot bloody longer than he has.
Universal Credit according to the gospel of Iain Duncan Smith will never be. Come on. Just imagine millions of people and employers all updating their details over the internet on a monthly basis and part-time works having to suffer the same conditionality to continually look for more work or better paid work to continue to receive their benefit entitlements as the unemployed – and don’t get me started about the self-employed! Add the fact that Universal Credit will only be paid to ONE person in each household on a MONTHLY basis and it’s obvious that it’s never going to work in practice.
The craziest thing is that Labour is purportedly in agreement with this sh*t*!
P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C!
Not everybody in Labour is in agreement with it!
It is the sign of a weak, ineffective Manager that he blames his staff for his Department’s failures. The Blame culture soon permeates the Department and renders it ineffective.
There is a saying “A Fish rots from the head down…”
During my career as a Civil Servant,there was always an understanding, later formalised by the Ministerial Code that Ministers would make Decisions and the Civil Servants would carry out such instructions as they were given, to the best of their ability. The Minister would take RESPONSIBILITY for his decisions and providing the Civil Servants had acted properly in carrying out their duties, the Minister would protect them from unwarranted criticism.
Of course, that was in a bygone age where we had ministers with the basic DECENCY to take RESPONSIBILITY for their actions.
It is now apparent that IDS is incapable of taking the responsibility his high office demands. He is a Bully and, like all bullies, a COWARD, not a quality welcomed at Sandhurst. Perhaps this explains his ignominious Military career
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & THE SIEGE OF BRITAIN POLITICAL JOURNAL.
utter tosh. civil servants like their masters do what is best for themselves. if they had any integrity we wouldn’t be in this mess. Fellow travelers at the same hog trough. All are Parashites.
Does this sweeping statement include those poor souls who are on little more than the Minimum Wage and who have seen their Terms and Conditions eroded over the past decade or more whilst their workload has increased out of all proportion?