There’s a certain logical dissonance from Aditya Chakrabortty here. He’s insistent that Universal Credit is an abomination, a terror, because it’s badly administered. And no doubt it is badly administered. But there are two further questions that need answers. The first being, well, what makes anyone think that the current cat’s cradle of welfare benefits are better administered? No one who tries to collect any of them, that’s for sure:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]After years of ministers pretending otherwise, Amber Rudd, the DWP secretary, now admits universal credit’s introduction has left people so short of cash that they have resorted to food banks. What Iain Duncan Smith hailed in 2011 as a transformation of welfare has turned into something grotesque, with massive delays and huge flaws both of administration and design, repeatedly damned by MP select committees. The independent National Audit Office judges that universal credit has neither saved public money nor helped people into work. But it has left thousands of vulnerable claimants penniless, while others starve and even lose their homes. In a House of Commons debate last summer the London Labour MP Catherine West recounted how one of her constituents had “fallen off benefits” and ended up “sleeping in a tent in a bin chamber” on a housing estate.[/perfectpullquote]OK. Government’s not very good at doing things.
So, Mr Chakrabortty – and others who share the same delusions – why is it that you want government to be doing so much more? Why do you want these same people who cannot hand out free money running the electricity system, the railways, the water works?
Don’t forget that if your argument is that she’ll be right if only the correct people are in charge at the top then you’ve just defended CEO pay.
So, why?
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The correct people at the top in government are not required to be the best. Just those comrades of proven worth. Then use the private sector pay to justify why the public sector needs the same (handily leaving out other benefits like index-lined pension and not doing any actual work).
There is some confusion as to what the government actually is. Is it the cabinet only or all ministers or is it the Ministries and Departments and civil servants or Boroughs, or Town and Parish Councils as well or all of them plus Quangos?
A policy such as Universal Credit might be a fine one in principle but poorly thought out, or it could be an excellent policy well thought out but poorly implemented. It might of course be a terrible idea in the first place. Can the blame be laid for instance at Iain Duncan Smith's feet? Not fairly as identifying where the problem arises from in the labyrinthine complexities of the modern state is simply impossible and when it is impossible to ascertain where errors arise it is impossible to fix them