Bedroom Tax refunds begin for pre-1996 tenants

I forgot to add the link there for anyone who wants to read it:

speye.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/bedroom-tax-pools-panel-results/

If anyone still doubts that the Government either doesn't have a clue about (or is trying to hide) the size of its so-called "small" error regarding pre-1996 tenants, look at these figures.

They show the number of people they estimated would be affected, and the actual number at the latest count:

•DWP 585 Scotland 10,000
•DWP 95 Birmingham 2,000
•DWP 81 Liverpool 1600
•DWP 29 Wirral 529
•DWP 24 St Helens 456
•DWP 8 West Lancs 150
•DWP 11 Waltham Forest 146
•DWP 7 Westminster 124
•DWP 7 Exeter 39

Those are just the tip of the iceberg, with figures still to come from another 400 or so councils.

Is the Government just incompetent, or guilty of intentional misinformation?

Sorry, Mollie but your post is putting my blood pressure up and that is dangerous. I could have another aortic dissection.
You must see you are wrong.
IDS has been called before committee after committee to apologise for his abuse of statistics, but you have obviously been taken in by him.
Fortunately not everybody has been taken in.

Not as slight as IDS would have you believe, Mollie - reliable estimates put the number affected at about 10 times greater than he is claiming, therefore the refund by taxpayers (many housing benefit recipients fall into that group too!) will be correspondingly larger.

What's more, the group of people affected by this cock-up (apologies if anyone is offended by that term, but it feels the most appropriate) is composed of the most vulnerable of all:

•Two-thirds were women
•87% were long-term sick or disabled
•One in 6 were carers for a family member

But no doubt that makes no difference. The expression "there are none so blind as those who will not see" keeps coming to mind

sitting on my hands - so the taxpayer has to refund a slight loss of housing benefit (not a tax) while families are forced to live in overcrowded conditions and would love social housing with security of tenure etc.
back to sitting on my hands before my BP goes up.

As expected, IDS now has plans to close this so-called loophole (3rd March).

Worryingly, but not surprisingly given his track record, it looks like he is going to try to change the law without due consultation.

Here's what Joe Halewood has to say about it:

speye.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/cover-your-cock-up-ids-and-no-we-wont-be-on-our-knees/

IDS really should not be allowed to slip this through quietly without consultation!

Thanks for the link, it will help my grandchildren's father.

Nothing like the last one, of course!

Just another example of this hopeless, incompetent government.