Member

This needs to have oversight from the centre. The truth is that, particularly in areas such as the recovery of debt, central co-ordination is essential. When we looked at the debts owed to HMRC and DWP, often from overpayments made by error, but also unpaid fines to the Ministry of Justice, we found an extraordinary degree of overlap. The right thing to do in terms of recovering money and also of treating people humanely and compassionately should be to aggregate that debt and deal with it as a single debtor because there will be some debtors who cannot pay but others who will not. It is important that those who cannot pay for reasons that may well be beyond their power to control should not receive numerous demands from different parts of government. Aggregate it and deal with it all together and you are much more likely to get the money back from those who can pay but will not, while treating respectfully and compassionately those who cannot pay but would like to. It is important that this should be done in a co-ordinated way, yet the Treasury’s whole philosophy is against that because it all has to be done within silos.