LETTER: Enormous waste of public funds

I read Horsham MP Francis Maude’s recent column in the Horsham edition of the County Times and wondered if he works for the same Government as Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP.
By The Newsroom
Published 26th Dec 2014, 06:00 BST
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He made the following statement, ‘We’ve moved from being a byword for IT disasters to being a world leader in digital government’.

Yet during a recent hearing of the Public Accounts Committee, it emerged that just £34 million of the £697 million spent on the Universal Credit IT infrastructure will be used for the final permanent system.

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Perhaps Mr Maude would like to comment on such an enormous waste of public funds on a thoroughly (universal) discredited system at a time when the NHS is creaking at the seams, and more and more people are having to use food banks to survive in what is one of the richest economies in the world.

He further mentions that tax revenues have grown less strongly than predicated. Stagnating and low paid wages, zero hours contracts along with the tax avoidance by the corporates are very much to blame here – after all, if people are on low wages, they pay lower tax, and have much less money to spend (reinvest if you will) in the general economy. Let’s not forget that Henry Ford paid his workers well, so they could buy the cars they actually made.

I would welcome Francis Maude’s comments on the above points, without the typical media talking points and corporate speak he seems so fond of.

JASON RUSSELL

Platts Meadow, Billingshurst

Related topics:GovernmentIain Duncan SmithDWPNHSUniversal Credit