This isn’t just bleeding heart stuff – the economy depends on people being in work, as with less people working, the less tax is paid. Not just income tax either, but the VAT take falls since the jobless cannot afford to spend on anything but essentials (which are rated at a lower, or sometimes zero, VAT rate).

The last time this lot were in power we had massive job losses, possibly because they didn’t bother to think through the results of their buying decisions – regularly choosing American suppliers instead of the local option. Unemployment is now reported to be over 2.5 million, for the first time since 1994, but back then, they did it all by themselves – there was no world economic crisis for them to blame it on.

This may just be the first of many massive job losses caused by lack of thinking in Whitehall. I worry how high the jobless total will rise under the Tories.

The consultants in particular, ruthlessly exploited the opportunity to cash in on the HIPS gravy train, on one hand, being paid by the taxpayer to help draft the legislation and operational procedures. While on the other, the companies they worked for, owned, or had alliances with, enjoyed hugely advantageous prior knowledge of the proposed system, giving them an unassailable position in the market once the scheme was launched.

The prices charged for “training”, accreditation, administration, and processing were borderline obscene, and the schemes they developed were tailored to deny competitors the opportunity to drive down these costs.

On several occasions I attempted to expose what was really going on through freedom of information requests to DCLG, but they refused to release the details of the internal meetings they had with these “consultants”. The last response I received was in September 2007, and it stated:

“Further to my letter of 29 August, we need to extend our response time limit by a further 20 working days to give us time to assess whether the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it.
The specific qualified exemptions we are considering in relation to your request are under Section 35: Formulation and Development of Government Policy and Section 36: Prejudice to the Effective Conduct of Public Affairs.
Therefore, we plan to let you have a response by 26 October.”

I did not receive any response on 26 October.

Ruth Kelly & Yvette Cooper worked hand in hand with these companies, perhaps one day the truth will come out.

It was a stated Conservative policy to get rid, and if most are honest the public will not miss them one bit.

My advice for the poor sods caught up in this is, don’t get a job that depends on controversial legislation there is always a chance that the next government will scrap it.

Sorry about your loss, but you will have to move on from this

Anti-HIP sentiment does appear to be dominating housing forums as well as the mainstream media!