Welcome to SomaliNet Forums, a friendly and gigantic Somali centric active community. Login to hide this block

You are currently viewing this page as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, ask questions, educate others, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many, many other features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join SomaliNet forums today! Please note that registered members with over 50 posts see no ads whatsoever! Are you new to SomaliNet? These forums with millions of posts are just one section of a much larger site. Just visit the front page and use the top links to explore deep into SomaliNet oasis, Somali singles, Somali business directory, Somali job bank and much more. Click here to login. If you need to reset your password, click here. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

BOUNTY ON BENEFIT CHEATS 'IS SNOOPER'S CHARTER' : BIG BROTHE

Daily chitchat.

Moderators: Moderators, Junior Moderators

Forum rules
This General Forum is for general discussions from daily chitchat to more serious discussions among Somalinet Forums members. Please do not use it as your Personal Message center (PM). If you want to contact a particular person or a group of people, please use the PM feature. If you want to contact the moderators, pls PM them. If you insist leaving a public message for the mods or other members, it will be deleted.
OUR SPONSOR: LOGIN TO HIDE
Daanyeer
SomaliNet Super
SomaliNet Super
Posts: 15781
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2003 7:00 pm
Location: Beer moos ku yaallo .biyuhuna u muuqdaan

BOUNTY ON BENEFIT CHEATS 'IS SNOOPER'S CHARTER' : BIG BROTHE

Postby Daanyeer » Tue Aug 10, 2010 11:05 am

Bounty on benefit cheats 'is snooper's charter': Big Brother warning over Cameron's war on fraudsters


By Daily Mail Reporter
10th August 2010


David Cameron came under attack from civil liberties groups today as he outlined radical plans to hire 'bounty hunters' to hunt down benefit cheats.

The tough stance comes as Mr Cameron launches a crackdown on the £5.2billion lost each year to fraud and error in the welfare system.

The Prime Minister will vow to take more cheats to court while Ministers will also give credit ratings agencies payment for every fraudulent applicant they identify.

The move means the firms will have access to the Government's records on housing benefit, incapacity and unemployment benefit claimants.

They will also trawl through household bills and credit card applications.

They could receive a 'bounty' payment of up to 5 per cent of the money they recover from fraudulent claimants.

The Government hopes the scheme will save the state £1billion, which could earn private firms up to £50million.
But Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said: 'Nobody approves of benefit cheats. But mining private data on a routine basis on the off-chance of catching people out is a disproportionate invasion of privacy.

'Furthermore, there should be a line between the state and the private sector. Taking powers of legal investigation and enforcement and granting them to private organisations blurs that line.'


Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of NO2ID, which campaigns against the 'database state', denounced the use of credit agencies as a 'recipe for snooping'. He added:

'This is a very significant blanket intrusion into private financial information.'

Some Liberal Democrat MPs are also worried about the plans, particularly as their leader Nick Clegg has promised the new Government will 'stand up against illegitimate advances of the state'.

Experian, the credit ratings agency, is expected to start working with the Department for Work and Pensions within weeks.

Firms will try to pinpoint claimants whose lifestyles look suspiciously lavish.

David Cameron, in Ashton-under-Lyne today, insisted the public should not be 'concerned' by the move.

'If you are entitled to welfare and can claim it then you should claim it but if you are not entitled to it you should not get and should not claim it,' he said.

'Private companies use all sorts of different means to make sure they are not defrauded, why should the state be any different?

'In the end it's taxpayers' money. People going out to work hard every day do not pay their taxes so that someone can basically claim it fraudulently. That is not right, it is not fair and I want to stop it.'
During his visit to St Peter's Partnership in Ashton-under-Lyne, a charity that helps people looking to return to work, he insisted benefit payouts had to be targeted.

'As we start to make savings to get our budget deficit under control, the first cut we ought to make is the welfare payments to people who are not entitled to it,' he said.
'The system pays money inappropriately to people who are not entitled to it so we have got to make the system work better as well. Both things, fraud and error, go together and I want to cut them both.'
Mr Cameron has ordered work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to draw up an ‘uncompromising strategy’ for slashing the vast sums paid out incorrectly or ‘stolen’ by benefit fraudsters.
The clampdown will include a fresh drive to bring more benefit cheats to court and
claw back cash from them.

In an article for the Manchester Evening news, Mr Cameron warned that the £5.2billion lost each year is equivalent to the cost of building 200 secondary schools or employing 150,000 nurses.

‘It’s absolutely outrageous and we cannot stand for it,' he said.

The Prime Minister insists the Government will not break up the welfare system, but
warns he will not tolerate abuse.

He says: ‘We’re determined to get the welfare system right. It will always be there for those who need it. But it won’t be a soft option.’

Mr Cameron highlights the fact that 5 per cent of those caught cheating the benefits system are never prosecuted.

Although £1.5billion a year is ‘stolen from the taxpayer’ by fraudsters, only £20million a year is recovered – a situation he describes as ‘simply not acceptable’.
'It’s quite wrong that there are people in our society who will behave like this but we will not shrug our shoulders and let them get away with it any longer,' he said.
'We will take the necessary measures to stop fraud happening in the first place, root out and take tough action against those found committing fraud, and make sure the stolen money is paid back.

‘So we are looking urgently at different options for reform. Tougher penalties for
fraud, more prosecutions, encouraging those who know fraud is taking place to come forwards and making greater efforts to reclaim money that’s wrongly paid.’


Mr Cameron says tackling benefit fraud and error is a key part of restoring order to Britain’s battered public finances.

He writes: ‘At a time when we’re having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud in our welfare system.’

But an even bigger task faces Ministers in tackling the huge sums lost in error.

An astonishing £1.6billion a year is lost in administrative mistakes, while a further
£2.1billion is wrongly paid out as a result of inadvertent errors by claimants.

Officials are looking at introducing more sophisticated systems to keep track of people’s incomes, making it easier to pay claims accurately.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0wDfcvio1

OUR SPONSOR: LOGIN TO HIDE

Hello, Has your question been answered on this page? We hope yes. If not, you can start a new thread and post your question(s). It is free to join. You can also search our over a million pages (just scroll up and use our site-wide search box) or browse the forums.

  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “General - General Discussions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 51 guests