11 December - Bexley council caught lying again
The News Shopper’s website today returns to the case of a resident who was accused by Bexley council
of fraudulently claiming the single person’s discount on her council tax. They did so because they
tricked her into a lie detector test (Voice Risk Analysis, V.R.A.) conducted by telephone and decided
on that flimsy evidence that she was not living alone. Now, rather belatedly and after causing
a great deal of stress to the lady they have accepted they were wrong. According to the
Shopper the government department that recommended the system dropped it but Bexley council
carried on using it for assessing the single person’s discount. Now a “council
spokeswoman” has apparently said that “Bexley dropped the use of V.R.A. in August”.
Someone at Bexley council is telling porkies again. There were cases of V.R.A. abuse reported in the News
Shopper on 13th October and
10th November
and as if that isn’t sufficient confirmation that V.R.A. wasn’t dropped in August,
I heard the system defended at
the council meeting last month.
Councillor Campbell stood up to say that V.R.A. was working well despite the bad publicity.
Campbell is the man whose idea of integrity and transparency is to sack a whistleblower who
reported paedophilia and drug dealing in his department. Incredible that someone should subject
residents to lie detectors, tolerate criminality within his own empire (the police charged his
manager but Campbell has yet to take action) and then terminate the employment of those who seek
to expose it. But maybe not so incredible for a council driven by greed and known for its
incompetence, mismanagement and dishonesty.