By Paul SpickerThe writer argues that official estimates of benefit fraud have been “inflated beyond anything the evidence can sustain” by a politically driven process of exaggeration and double-counting. 

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs announcement that it plans to outsource IT services shortly has angered the Public and Commercial Services Union. Under the previous Conservative Government, IT services were market tested and the ‘in house’ team provided the winning bid. Subsequently a Better Quality Service review concluded that outsourcing of in-house IT services would not be cost-effective. 

The team in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister developing the ‘Maps on Tap’ project soon realized that they were creating a winning concept. The project aim was to bring together maps produced by Ordinance Survey with databases of planning and land use statistics. It soon became clear that the application they were developing was just the tip of an iceberg. Many organizations both within and outside government need information related to geographical areas.