News Britain Is Freezing To Death

[Postigol]

No. What I'm saying is this

[1] when it comes to administration, a universal benefit is a lot cheaper to deal with than a means-tested one. Means testing is expensive.

[2] depending on the circumstances if you means test in such a way that most people get a benefit, and only a few don't, then you have probably spent more in administration than you have saved by not giving it out.

[3] I do not know what the costs of making the substantial administrative change would be in the case of either CB or WFA.

In the absence of the figures, I don't want to call it either way on those two benefits. Maybe the politicians have carefully calculated this one out. Or maybe they've said "Oh, we'll save a thousand pounds a year for each rich person who doesn't get CB - if there are 10,000 of them, then we will save £10m." What they don't say is that it will cost £20m to set the system up (new government software anyone?), and then £12m per year to get all the figures in and process them.

I stress these are imaginary figures, simply to illustrate the point. I don't have the actual ones to hand. And until I have some actual figures in my possession - plus a schema to show how the system will mesh with other systems

The point of the exercise is, under those circs, that the politician may be unaware of the costs involved, or they may be fully aware, or even think they are fully aware, of a set costs about which they know virtually nothing. When, or if, those costings become available then I will try to have some idea of my support of otherwise for these universal benefits.

However, if the politicians did know that NO money would be saved, the General Public might still decide to move over to the means-tested benefit. They might think that the population at large would rather lose money themselves than think of extra payments going to the rich. Of course, the population at large might just want to have the minimum amount of money spent - even if the results were not entirely equitable.

So my question was, do you want a benefit system that is as near fair as a human system can be, even if a lot of the money for that benefit had to be spend on administration? Or do you prefer it run on the cheap and sod the fairness criterion?

Your other points will have to wait for another time.

db

if someone stole £1000 pounds, but it would cost £2000 pounds to try them and find them guilty, and get the £1000 back, is it worth doing?

[dissident junk]

No. What I'm saying is this

[1] when it comes to administration, a universal benefit is a lot cheaper to deal with than a means-tested one. Means testing is expensive.

[2] depending on the circumstances if you means test in such a way that most people get a benefit, and only a few don't, then you have probably spent more in administration than you have saved by not giving it out.

[3] I do not know what the costs of making the substantial administrative change would be in the case of either CB or WFA.

In the absence of the figures, I don't want to call it either way on those two benefits. Maybe the politicians have carefully calculated this one out. Or maybe they've said "Oh, we'll save a thousand pounds a year for each rich person who doesn't get CB - if there are 10,000 of them, then we will save £10m." What they don't say is that it will cost £20m to set the system up (new government software anyone?), and then £12m per year to get all the figures in and process them.

I stress these are imaginary figures, simply to illustrate the point. I don't have the actual ones to hand. And until I have some actual figures in my possession - plus a schema to show how the system will mesh with other systems

The point of the exercise is, under those circs, that the politician may be unaware of the costs involved, or they may be fully aware, or even think they are fully aware, of a set costs about which they know virtually nothing. When, or if, those costings become available then I will try to have some idea of my support of otherwise for these universal benefits.

However, if the politicians did know that NO money would be saved, the General Public might still decide to move over to the means-tested benefit. They might think that the population at large would rather lose money themselves than think of extra payments going to the rich. Of course, the population at large might just want to have the minimum amount of money spent - even if the results were not entirely equitable.

So my question was, do you want a benefit system that is as near fair as a human system can be, even if a lot of the money for that benefit had to be spend on administration? Or do you prefer it run on the cheap and sod the fairness criterion?

Your other points will have to wait for another time.

db

Your point are very true (Frank Field is written about this extensively) but you get to the point where you just think: "why give out universal benefits at all if huge swathes of people would receive them? Why not just cut taxes, and only limit benefits to the very poor and have that money sourced through taxes on above average earners?"

All we seem to be doing in Britain is tax churning on an enormous, very costly and unproductive scale where money is siphoned off into private interests and corporates.

[deeplyblue]

if someone stole £1000 pounds, but it would cost £2000 pounds to try them and find them guilty, and get the £1000 back, is it worth doing?

Getting child benefit, or Winter Fuel Allowance when you don't need it is not a crime. You may think that it is unfair, and that the cost of remedying the unfairness should be something society is prepared to pay.

However, the reduction in CB is being presented as an austerity measure - that is to say that it is necessary on cost grounds. Many other things are being considered, and some implemented, on the same grounds. The rise in student tuition fees, for example (since that's the one on everyone's lips) is not being introduced as a simple piece of economic fairness, but as a necessary piece of government cost-cutting in hard times.

You will note that I have not said whether I think means-testing either CB or WFA will save money. I have not said either whether I think these measures are fair. I have not said whether I think other measures would have been preferable, or whether the issue is cost or fairness.

But, IF all of this is being done primarily to save money, then asking "but will it actually save money?" seems reasonable.

db