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Asylum seeker benefits fraud 'not being tackled'

BoselectaBoselecta Posts: 1,640
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in Politics #1
BBC news story reporting the latest report by John Vine, Home Office inspector, into work of Immigration/Borders department which, as usual is pretty scathing.
Thing is, this is the umpteenth consecutive independent report by Vine that slates the Immigration service... Wouldn't it make more sense and save time/money to put Vine in charge of it instead of having him constantly telling them where they are ballsing things up???

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  • Rick_DavisRick_Davis Posts: 1,104
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    #2
    Boselecta wrote: »
    BBC news story reporting the latest report by John Vine, Home Office inspector, into work of Immigration/Borders department which, as usual is pretty scathing.
    Thing is, this is the umpteenth consecutive independent report by Vine that slates the Immigration service... Wouldn't it make more sense and save time/money to put Vine in charge of it instead of having him constantly telling them where they are ballsing things up???

    So you attack the reporter, not the story?
  • deptfordbakerdeptfordbaker Posts: 22,368
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    #3
    What they need is better technology and more people. There still setup for the era before mass immigration. The funding for their modernisation and expansion can be generated by making the people that benefit from immigration pay for it. Unfortunately we still have civil servants handing out contracts, which they then end up having to cancel after wasting huge amounts of money.

    They would be far better off hiring some experts and doing the work in house, with lots of very small contracts handing out to industry for the bits and pieces of the systems.
  • BoselectaBoselecta Posts: 1,640
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    #4
    Rick_Davis wrote: »
    So you attack the reporter, not the story?
    No.Suggesting he is a person who clearly knows how to run them effectively and my taxes are currently paying someone to be in charge AND for John Vine to tell them how to run it better. I'm saying sack whoever's in charge of Borders and put John Vine in charge instead.
    Borders are currently a farce... On top of Vine's regular scathing reports they get savaged every 3 months by Home Affairs Select Committee but, despite this happening like clockwork for several years they are still there blundering away!? The money wasted running it, reporting on it, explaining it is a cottage industry in itself _ shocking!
  • tim59tim59 Posts: 47,188
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    #5
    ItJustMyOpinion wrote: »
    What they need is better technology and more people. There still setup for the era before mass immigration. The funding for their modernisation and expansion can be generated by making the people that benefit from immigration pay for it. Unfortunately we still have civil servants handing out contracts, which they then end up having to cancel after wasting huge amounts of money.

    They would be far better off hiring some experts and doing the work in house, with lots of very small contracts handing out to industry for the bits and pieces of the systems.
    Governments doing things in house is so old hat, the idea is smaller numbers of public sector workers not more, it is also alot easier to blame a company in the private sector when things go wrong. Very few things are done in house.
  • Ethel_FredEthel_Fred Posts: 34,127
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    #6
    So how much does this fraud cost us?
  • TheTruth1983TheTruth1983 Posts: 13,462
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    #7
    Surely, if they were tackling benefit fraud then they would be tackling ALL benefit fraud no matter who was committing it so the 'asylum seeker' bit would be irrelevant.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,074
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    #8
    TheTruth1983 wrote: »
    Surely, if they were tackling benefit fraud then they would be tackling ALL benefit fraud no matter who was committing it so the 'asylum seeker' bit would be irrelevant.
    The UK Border Agency runs its own welfare system for asylum seekers and refugees seperate to the system run by the DWP.
  • deptfordbakerdeptfordbaker Posts: 22,368
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    #9
    tim59 wrote: »
    Governments doing things in house is so old hat, the idea is smaller numbers of public sector workers not more, it is also alot easier to blame a company in the private sector when things go wrong. Very few things are done in house.

    The problem with that approach is, if the civil servants give the contractor the wrong spec, or change their minds after it has been signed, it will end up costing the taxpayer a lot more money one way or another.

    In house may be old fashioned, but things can go full circle and to me large contracts seem risky and out of date as well. Hiring a small team of experts who work for the department, means the project can adapt without financial penalty. It also means the civil servants can say what they want politically and the in house IT team can translate that it to a technical spec, keeping the civil servants away from system design.

    A lot of the time nowadays they seem to create a spec and ask for a big system costing millions, when they could just have agreed protocols and formats and used the existing hardware.

    I agree with your view that for political reasons a contractor is useful when someone needs to take the blame, but as a voter I am more concerned with them getting the system on time and within budget.
  • tim59tim59 Posts: 47,188
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    #10
    ItJustMyOpinion wrote: »
    The problem with that approach is, if the civil servants give the contractor the wrong spec, or change their minds after it has been signed, it will end up costing the taxpayer a lot more money one way or another.

    In house may be old fashioned, but things can go full circle and to me large contracts seem risky and out of date as well. Hiring a small team of experts who work for the department, means the project can adapt without financial penalty. It also means the civil servants can say what they want politically and the in house IT team can translate that it to a technical spec, keeping the civil servants away from system design.

    A lot of the time nowadays they seem to create a spec and ask for a big system costing millions, when they could just have agreed protocols and formats and used the existing hardware.

    I agree with your view that for political reasons a contractor is useful when someone needs to take the blame, but as a voter I am more concerned with them getting the system on time and within budget.

    The trouble is the infrastructure to be able to do these contracts in house is no longer there, you only have to look at the amount of contracts that fail and go wrong, but these companies mess up on a contract but keep getting more contracts because there is no way to take them back in house. G4S, serco, seetec, capita, atos, and loads more. Just look at 1 company atos, the government sack them because of the mess of the WCA, but award them a differant contract doing the same kind of assessments for PIP, but even after that you pay them more money for the contract that you have sacked them from because the job cannot be done without thier help, http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3530443/dwp-awards-atos-10-million-it-contract-for-healthcare-assessments/
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