Two similar stories today, both of which give a pretty damning assessment of the government's performance.

First, we learn that tax credits, the brainchild of Gordon Brown (the prudent "iron chancellor", lest we forget) have been overpaid to the tune of £2.2bn. Many families will now find that they are being asked to repay relatively large sums of money that they, apparently, should not have received. If this story sounds somewhat familiar, it's because precisely the same thing happened last year.

The usual claims were made - that the system is doing good overall, and that any problems were being fixed. Chairman of HM Revenue and Customs Sir David Varney:

"We reject any assertion that overpayments have occurred because the tax credit system is either unduly complex or hard to implement. This is a system benefiting over 6 million families, the vast majority of whom have faced no difficulties with their payments. We have already put in place many improvements to deal with the problems raised."

Moving neatly from one blunder to the next, we also learned today that over 1,000 convicted foreign criminals have been set free at the end of their sentences, rather than deported. They include murderers, rapists and child sex offenders, though the majority are guilty of lesser crimes. It has long been accepted that the government has difficulty in removing failed asylum seekers, since they can be difficult to locate. But this example proves that the government is struggling to remove even those already arrested, tried and convicted.

The Home Office now admits that it has little idea where these people are. This is doubly bizarre as all released murderers are supposed to be monitored and all released sex offenders are supposed to be placed on the Sex Offenders Register. If either of these proves not to be the case, it suggests that there is an even deeper problem that goes beyond merely foreign criminals.

The overall impression is of an incompetent operation. They don't know whether they're overpaying benefits, they don't know whether they're deporting people, they don't know where those people are even though they've passed several pieces of legislation to enable monitoring of released offenders.

Charles Clarke has, naturally, refused to resign or sack any of the Ministers responsible and the idea that Gordon Brown might permit any of his Treasury inner circle to suffer the consequences of the Tax Credits debacle is laughable. In both cases, the government's response appears to be that because they designed a failing system, they must now stay in place in order to fix it. If they can just work a little harder, for a little longer, all will be saved.

I am beginning to suspect that they're running out of time. They've had nine years to solve these problems; in that time, they've ignored often constructive advice from the opposition parties - chiefly the Lib Dems. They - and nobody exemplifies this better than Charles Clarke - persist in lecturing the other parties about being 'in touch' with what people want. But what people want is competent, sensible government that knows its own limits and focusses on doing its core jobs and doing them well. They don't want billions wasted on IT projects, grandiose ID card schemes or the latest revolution in healthcare or education. They're fed up of hearing about how the Home Office needs more powers when they don't seem to be able to manage the ones they already have.