Ombudsman Attacks Council over ITNet Delays

With uncertainty still surrounding Hackney Council’s position on ITNet, the incompetent firm “running” the benefits service, the Government Ombudsman has added his voice to the criticisms already made by the IWCA and many others.

After looking at the case of one claimant, he has described the failures of the benefits system as “truly astonishing” and even adds that the council admit that service delivery has been “completely unacceptable” since ITNet took over in November 1997 – 3 whole years ago !

One of the main problems, as the IWCA pointed out at the time, was that it took a councillor on benefits himself (Vernon Williams) to make the middle class councillors of Hackney realise that they were sitting on a massive problem.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the whole system is still in a mess and many people are still suffering because of it. Sadly not ITNet though, whose massive profits will undoubtedly grow this year as they have every other year. To see just how nicely they’re doing at our expense have a look at their attractive no-expense spared website and click on the annual report. We await the next one with interest.