Measures in the works for wealthy to "hand back" their children's allowance.

Welease

Deleted User wrote: »

Agree with this. A 3 to 5 year cost benefit analysis is about right for this kind of integration project in the private sector, but the average lifespan for a similar public sector project would be significantly longer. This would chug along in the DSP for years before it got an overhaul paid for by public money, and any costs incurred in managing it would be dwarfed by the savings made annually.

From an IT and services investment standpoint, it's a no brainer. You could realistically expect a system like this to be generating significant net returns for the taxpayer for at least 5 years after it reaches break-even. At least.

As has been posted already, the issue of the feasibility/complexity of the technology is a red herring here. All that's required is the political will to act.

I'm sorry, but post is borderline rediculous.. Can you show me any data points you have to the cost and/or benefits of a government linked IT system? and a breakeven in 3-5 years?

It's easy to come up with verbalised suggestions as to the benefits, they are obvious to anyone with a passing interest in IT, but for people to suggest cost vs. benefits in x numbers of years, would required a detailed understanding of the systems involved, the required system design, the process to get there, and detailed cost analysis of the modifications and the benefits of such modification.. As far as I am aware none of this actually exists for even linking SW to Revenue, so there is no way they can exist for a totally integrated system.

Welease

Welease wrote: »

I'm sorry, but post is borderline rediculous.. Can you show me any data points you have to the cost and/or benefits of a government linked IT system? and a breakeven in 3-5 years?

No I can't, of course not. My post was a general impression of the complexity of a project based on the integration of two systems of a size typical to 2 key government departments in a country of approx 4.5 million people. It's just an estimation based on industry experience. Relax. For the final time, the technology is not the issue here, the lack of political will to act is where the problem is.

AlekSmart

My sense is of the entire Child Benefit issue being a bit of a Political Grandstand performance.

The statistics from 2011 appear to show the existing reductions had brought CB levels back to c 2006 totals.

http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Policy/ResearchSurveysAndStatistics/Documents/2011stats.pdf

Section F,pages 71 onwards give a somewhat clearer and dispassionate view of the issue.

It all appears to me a case of "But,Who'll look after the Children" scenario being played out with St Joan at the forefront..?

The sheer scale and depth of the Statistics in the report is scarifying for a bankrupt country ???

Cheerful Spring

How many wealthy people will be socially consciousness enough to hand back their children's allowance? I say good luck with that Joan Burton.

Welease

Deleted User wrote: »

No I can't, of course not. My post was a general impression of the complexity of a project based on the integration of two systems of a size typical to 2 key government departments in a country of approx 4.5 million people. It's just an estimation based on industry experience. Relax. For the final time, the technology is not the issue here, the lack of political will to act is where the problem is.

But thats the point (and I'm not trying to be disrepectful here).. You (and others) are making colossal assumptions based on close to zero knowledge of the systems involved... You are blaming political will, when those politicans have honestly stated (iirc) that they don't know the changes required yet, so can't commit to how long it would take or the cost involved.. While it's not the answer we need right now, it's an honest answer and forcing through "political will" without an understanding of the costs, benefits or technological requirements is exactly what caused the e-voting waste of money and various other political follies previously.

It's an assumption that we are talking about 2 "systems" here.. SW is a colossal department, do we even know that it's a single IT system?.. I would be amazed if it was.. Same again with Revenue... I doubt its a single system.. and I doubt just providing an interface will solve the issue, there may be masses of underlying process and data requirements that are as of yet unidentified and unfulfiulled.. For example, how are PPS numbers linked within the system? CB is paid and linked to my wife's PPS number but she doesnt work anymore.. All earnings are linked to my PPS number, the only linkage I am aware of is if I decide to utilise her tax allowances when processing my yearly return.. If I decide not to use her allowance, how do revenue know we are of linked income and process based on that? (as per my response to LeinsterDub).. Any change to that system to allow linkage now requires new processes when registering CB, tax, income etc. which now flows into multiple other systems and paper based forms within hospitals etc.. What if we split? Now new processes need to be in place to decouple earnings etc.
Before the recent Revenue changes to business allocated stock units etc. to employee's, companies would report stock allocations to Revenue (by law) but Revenue couldn't (or wouldn't) link them to employees tax returns so many people didn't bother to fill in the require tax forms (or pay the relevant tax).. So if Revenue don't even force collection of due taxes they are made aware of, then its somewhat safe to assume that the implementation of a multi PPS linked income system may be somewhat more complicated than the simple switch over many people are suggesting.


Yes something needs to be done, Yes it needs to be done sooner rather than later.. But anyone suggesting it will take x years and a cost benefit return is over x years.. is frankly talking absolutely <rudeword>.

relax carry on

Revenue already receive information on certain payments from the DSP such as Jobseekers Benefit and Illness benefit which are linked to PPS numbers. More info on DSP payments like pensions have recently started to be shared. Is it that much of a leap to add in child benefit and tax it like the other payments by reducing credits and rate band?

Welease

relax carry on wrote: »

Revenue already receive information on certain payments from the DSP such as Jobseekers Benefit and Illness benefit which are linked to PPS numbers. More info on DSP payments like pensions have recently started to be shared. Is it that much of a leap to add in child benefit and tax it like the other payments by reducing credits and rate band?

That is the answer that the bulk of people (incl. the government) appear to be waiting for..

antoobrien

Welease wrote: »

I'm sorry, but post is borderline rediculous.. Can you show me any data points you have to the cost and/or benefits of a government linked IT system? and a breakeven in 3-5 years?

Actually that estimate is conservative. An analytics system (required to support a means test) will cost €5m-€10m to implement. The government when they wanted to restrict the medical card for wealthy over 70's (e.g. tony o'reilly) in 2008 they estimated savings of €100m for this one measure (even if that's 2/3 times inflated that's a good saving). A quick look at the income distribution stats tells us that 5% of the workforce (2.2m) earned 100k or more in 2009. If we carry out the suggestion to stop CB for these families, (5% of €2 bn) works out at up to €100m in savings.

These two measures would pay for a government wide IT system on their own in the 3-5 year timeline - just from purchasing and using an analytics system.

We can also look at the duplication of systems across the different departments. There are historical reasons for this, networks weren't great when departments started investing in IT stream so separate systems were more or less required. The savings would be made by moving duplicated HR, procurement and other back office systems to a single system (possibly even a cloud offering). Without knowing the details of licensing agreements and support deals it's hard to put a figure on something like this, so I'd be inclined to agree with the 3-5 year timeline for such a system paying for itself by reducing duplication of contracts, software and hardware.

Welease

antoobrien wrote: »

Actually that estimate is conservative. An analytics system (required to support a means test) will cost €5m-€10m to implement. The government when they wanted to restrict the medical card for wealthy over 70's (e.g. tony o'reilly) in 2008 they estimated savings of €100m for this one measure (even if that's 2/3 times inflated that's a good saving). A quick look at the income distribution stats tells us that 5% of the workforce (2.2m) earned 100k or more in 2009. If we carry out the suggestion to stop CB for these families, (5% of €2 bn) works out at up to €100m in savings.

How is linking to a story about means testing medical cards (with no costings suplied in the link) relevant to the Cost Benefit of means testing CB? Nowhere in that link is there a cost benefit of the system modifications required.
Once again, simplistic maths don't prove a point.. You are making the assumption that # of children eligible for CB is relative flat across the earning scale.. Do you have any figures to backup this analysis? Logic would argue that it would tend to be the more mature employees who would be earning at that level, and therefore a simple 5% cut may not apply given a good % of their children may be over the eligibility age.
No specific requirements for means testing have been decided upon, so therefore no specific costs can be determined.

Point being (again) picking figures out of the air to "prove" a point is exactly what people on this board complain about unions, politicians etc doing.. But seem happy to do so when it suits their arguement..

antoobrien wrote: »

These two measures would pay for a government wide IT system on their own in the 3-5 year timeline - just from purchasing and using an analytics system.

Measure and figures completely unrelated to and irrelevant to the discussion... Sorry, but if you want to claim that a cost benefit exists, then you need to provide costs and benefit analysis that has some basis in fact using at least relative data points.
Yes, I know we don't have that data.. But thats the issue at hand, and one that the relevant politicians are struggling with.

antoobrien wrote: »

We can also look at the duplication of systems across the different departments. There are historical reasons for this, networks weren't great when departments started investing in IT stream so separate systems were more or less required. The savings would be made by moving duplicated HR, procurement and other back office systems to a single system (possibly even a cloud offering). Without knowing the details of licensing agreements and support deals it's hard to put a figure on something like this, so I'd be inclined to agree with the 3-5 year timeline for such a system paying for itself by reducing duplication of contracts, software and hardware.

And here is the exact essence of the issue I have concerns with... You readily admit you don't know the details of the systems, licence, support agreements (and I could also assume the background processes, technologies, data etc etc etc..) but you can agree a 3-5 year timeline??

Fair play.. from a stated position of ignorance about the systems (like most here.. including me).. you can specify how long it would take to migrate across to a single system... If you cannot understand how ludicrous your statement is then I'm guessing you actually have little or no real IT experience in enterprise systems migration.


If you (or anyone) can actually provide details and costings to backup these claims of 3-5 year ROI then any rational person (including the government) would love to see them.. I'm guess that you don't actually have them though, becuase those in charge of those very systems don't seem to have them..

(Again, I'm not trying to be an arse here.. but some of the posts about costs/timelines are rediculous.. if a politician made decisions costing potentially hundreds of millions based on a hunch posters on here would want them hung, drawn and quartered... Yet posters on here demand the very same politicians spend money with no idea of the ROI... The relevant teams in the PS need to be given requirements, they need to perform a discovery exercise to understand, design and cost those requirements then and only then can a realistic Go/No Go decision be made on these changes). It is likely that considerable cost savings can and wil be made, but pretending to know how long it will take with 0 knowledge of the systems involved is beyond daft..

creedp

monkeypants wrote: »

Doesn't means testing require a lot of admin? In which case, there'll be a huge cost. But still, it'll be more jobs in the public sector.

Means-testing is a great way for people to flex their mental muscles to come up with (or more to the point their financial advisors) novel ways to keep their incomes under the set thresholds, especially for those who are self-employed or who have 'multiple' sources of income, e.g. it never ceases to amaze me how self-employed people can benefit from 3rd level grants when they would appear not to 'need' them. As a matter of interest how often would people consider this means testing should occur - once at time of registering, every yeay, every 2 years?

Also if means-testing only works on the mother's income how will this be fair? If it works on both incomes of a couple then families of Ireland should just remain single parents. Why should a working couple with a relatively high gross income who have to shell out up to €20k a year on childcare lose child benefit while a stay at home mother whose husband/partner has a very good income keep it?

One thing sure though, it means-testing goes ahead there will still be people benefiting from it who don't 'need' it while plenty people who could be considered in 'need' of it will lose it.

As for this voluntary hand back of the CB - bloody madness!! Why don't we ask 'rich people' (yet tobe defined) to voluntary hand over a few extra bob in tax or donate a few bob to the Govt? Why focus on CB? Its great when this topics comes up people immediately focus on the Michael O'Leary's/Smurfitt's of this world - how many do these people represent? I'd love to know how much tax relief these guys benefit from in a year and compare that to the CB? I wonder do they 'need' all the other tax breaks they get? Utter tosh!

Stabshauptmann

It is my personal honest opinion that people should claim 100% of what they are entitled to.
My belief is that by not doing so the market / information available is distorted.

For example, I believe JSA is too high (I have a problem with JSA being the same as JSB, but thats a topic for another thread and will not reply to any rants) and the only way this is going to change is if everyone who is entitled to JSA claims it.
If the uptake isnt 100% the final "bill" wont reflect the true cost per person, it will be distorted downwards. I would prefer the full "bill", and people to realise that the payment is too high, and adjust it.

So, regarding voluntary hand backs. No. I have no problem loosing this payment if I were being treated the same as every other citizen. But I am not going to shoulder more than my fair share. Supporting the state (paying taxes) is not charity, it needs to be based on a system of equality.