Mark Andrews: Passwords, smiley pensioners and paperless councils can't mask crisis in social care

"We're going paperless" my local authority informs me, in a jaunty email featuring a silver-haired man grinning inanely at his phone. If there is one thing I have learned in life, it is never to trust a man who derives that much pleasure from staring at his phone. And if he tells you  'I'm just checking my council tax', don't believe a word of it. 

At the moment, the council is merely 'offering' the option to send me my bill over the worldwide web, but I think we all know which way this is heading. Give it a couple of years, following a relentless campaign to get people signed up, they will be telling us how 'most people now prefer to manage their bills online' - yeah, right  - and will start charging for the privilege of getting a letter in the post telling us how much money they are screwing us for.

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