Whatever system you put in place will be open to abuse, and some people will always find the chinks and cheat.
Just been looking at some figures....
£100 million is spent investigating benefit cheats every year, £215 million is recouped.
An estimated £1.2 billion a year in benefit fraud (apparently thats 0.7% of all benefits paid out)
An estimated £12 billion a year in unclaimed benefits because of the complexity of the current system (Less's blog post typifies this)
Looks to me like the current system is actually saving the country money, to the tune of £10.8 billion a year....are we really sure it needs messing with?
Consider also that HMRC reckons that they are down around £40 billion a year in tax fraud and £25 billion a year in questionable tax evasion...I know which system I think needs savagely attacking, but since most of these fraudsters are companies or people with wealth, who probably donate to the tories and would never dream of appearing on Jeremy Kyle in a hoodie looking like they haven't had a wash for a week, I won't be holding my breath waiting for IDS and his ilk to do anything.
