Whilst they may not be able to do much about it, at least some of the politicians in the UK have realised what a complex system we have around the claiming of various benefits. The conclusions from the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee published on the 12 January 2012, recognize the pickle we have got ourselves into:
- No single body is responsible for coordinating means testing across government
- At present there is no clear picture of how the entire benefit system affects claimants’ incentives to work
- Departments do not understand the impact of administering more means-tested benefits locally
- The benefit system is difficult to understand and places a high burden on claimants
- administrative costs of means-tested benefits vary so significantly
- Real-time information systems will be difficult to implement
So, if we have got an unmanageable set of legislation that makes life difficult and expensive for all levels of public service, who is going to sort it out? This self-induced complexity has been frequently discussed here, especially around the ‘New Conditionality’ covered by Paul Henman in Governing electronically – we make processes and systems complex because we believe that ICT will sort it all out for us – it may, but at an enormous cost, especially if the systems are outsourced or poorly designed. Let’s keep it simple or pay the stupid price!
Posted by greatemancipator 
The Great E-mancipator 