Spot what's missing from this BBC report

The BBC have a report that begins "Watchdog raps 'harsh' tax credits - The tax credit system is "unfair" to some of the UK's poorest families, the Parliamentary Ombudsman has said."

Take a read of the whole report and see if you can spot one detail that has been omitted..........

Who created the Tax Credits system that is "unfair"? That would be a Mr Gordon Brown, one time Chancellor of the Exchequer and now Prime Minister of the country. Why are the BBC being so coy about this? Do they not know or would they rather not remind us?

You may remember Gordon Brown, he was the proud creator of the system who when it went wrong avoided answering House of Commons questions on Tax Credits, he got one of his Treasury department team to answer in his stead.

These are the tax credits that the Commons Public Accounts Committee warned in April or May of this year suffered from the highest rates of error and fraud anywhere in Government, and complained that the Treasury had "still not developed an adequate response to the unacceptable levels of fraud and error in the scheme".


Whilst on the subject of tax credits, you might want to take a look at this article from Computer Weekly earlier this year. It details the legal settlement with IT supplier EDS over problems with tax credit system. As Richard Bacon said at Gordon Brown's first PMQs "EDS has to pay £71m in compensation to HM Revenue and Customs. £44m was up front with a further £26.5m in staged payments but at the present rate of progress it would take 106 years for the Exchequer to receive the money it is due. Does the Prime Minister think that’s a satisfactory rate of progress and if not what’s he going to do to get the money that’s owed to the taxpayer?"

I know you will be shocked by this, but Gordon Brown declined to answer the question, saying "We are talking about a commercial arrangement between a firm and the government, a commercial arrangement that was then renegotiated. The Public Accounts Committee and any other organisation is welcome to look at it but I am satisfied that we have done what is right in the public interest."


before you go, take a read of this from the Times earlier this month.