MSE News: HMRC to axe tax credit checking firm Concentrix with immediate effect

Darksparkle

Would be interested to know what people's suggestions would be for these types of checks.

Would you like them to do surveillance instead?

POPPYOSCAR

Savile wrote: »

the problem you have is fraud is such a huge problem that they need the catch all solution. it is easy to farm it out because it saves on long term costs for employees, offices etc. there was a stat about the about of single parents claiming tax credits not tally with some other stat, How do we solve this do we just keep paying and ask no questions? i know this is what most on this forum want.

It should be done by government agencies not a profit making organisation that depends on results.

Personally I think tax credits should never have been introduced but they were and people have come to depend on them.

To make unreasonable assumptions and then stop the money until proven wrong is not the right way to go about things,as has been proven in this case.

Ames

From what I saw when it was discussed at PMQs and on the Daily Politics the 'checks' were just far too general. My favourite examples were the people accused of living together as man and wife with a business that shared the property, and the woman accused of living with Joseph Chamberlain.

I imagine that Concentrix tried to do things on the cheap and just didn't give staff enough time to actually check that the data matching results made sense.

Although it doesn't surprise me. Government contracts seem to be going to whatever company puts in the lowest tender, without any common sense applied to whether or not it's possible to deliver for that price.

missapril75

MABLE wrote: »

However HMRC thought they knew best and as we know a bigger disaster followed.

I suspect this is actually someone in government imposing it, not someone within HMRC (or someone bowing to external pressure)

Londonsu wrote: »

As long as there are still checks in place...I see no problem

Nothing wrong with checks. They would always have been there.

I have no doubt that HMRC - in whatever their guise - have suffered through lack of resources just like happened at DSS when they were never properly funded so that whenever work backlogs mounted and they were too short staffed to deal with the work, staff were taken of maintenance chasing duties to pay people their benefits, the consequence being that maintenance wasn't collected and benefit costs soared.

So then some bright spark decided to invent a whole new department (CSA) to do at many more times what would have been the cost to a properly funded DSS.

as long as questions will still be asked of claimants who only work the bare minimum required to ensure they are entitled to the maximum amount of tax credits they can possibly get

A common recommendation on this site when people have grumbled about potential sanctions and such. "Can you work self employed, you only have to work X hours and get tax credits instead of JSA"

Londonsu

I thought tax credits were being phased out and being added to universal credit anyway, its that going to make things easier or harder for people?

missapril75

Ames wrote: »

Although it doesn't surprise me. Government contracts seem to be going to whatever company puts in the lowest tender, without any common sense applied to whether or not it's possible to deliver for that price.

And to 'friends', don't forget that part.

Whenever this crops up it's always worth looking up the A4e scandals. Even the dailymail covered it.

Most people seem aware of that disreputable bunch atos, but take a look at A4e.

antonic

And the people who worked for Concentrix on this contract have now become HMRC employees !

Darksparkle

antonic wrote: »

And the people who worked for Concentrix on this contract have now become HMRC employees !

The staff weren't really the issue, the processes were.

MABLE

antonic wrote: »

And the people who worked for Concentrix on this contract have now become HMRC employees !

It was the infrastructure that let the staff down. Also I hear they are going through a period of training to bring them up to standard.

However I am sure Concentrix did not want their staff to be rude and unhelpful to customers. Hopefully all concerned will have learnt a lesson.