Finally - benefits sense!

[Rico]

Labour may just rescue its fortunes yet through the new, reasonable benefits regulations. Why on earth would we not encourage people to work and require those claiming to demonstrate need on a reasonable, regular basis? Now we just need a bit more penalty for those who don't comply.

[Marmora Man]

I doubt anything Labour does will rescue its fortunes.

Frank Field doesn't rate this initiative and he's thought longer and harder about this issue than almost any politician.

Some of the ideas may have some resonance for the "reasonable" person but implementing the changes will rely upon some poor benighted front line official in DWP who won't be given the necessary training or back up, will be reluctant to confront and, 9 times out of 10, will duck the issue. It's very unlikely that this initiative will either:

a. Put more people back into work (and bringing it in just as jobs are drying up isn't the most strategic of moves either - where is the work that these "scroungers" are going to take up to come from?)

b. Reduce the costs of state benefits in any significant fashion.

I liked Frank Field's idea (in The Times today) of making each Social Security office a profit centre - with staff incentivised to reduce cost of benefits and increase numbers in work. Profits made to be shared with the State and staff.

[SeanMacGabhann]

sorry MM but that is just repulsive. Apart from this idea that ALL of our money is being wasted, the reality is somewhat different - how, as an incentivised officer do you deal with:

Letter in today's Guardian:

Up until three years ago I was a member of the working class (Benefits clampdown, July 21). I have no qualifications and I raised my family by working hard and earning little. As such I was never able to have either a pension, a mortgage or insurance. Three years ago, within six days of each other, I had a heart attack and my wife had heart failure (totally unconnected). We as a small family were destroyed.

My wife was in intensive care for a month and my daughter took an overdose believing us both dead. What happened to us as a family can happen to any family. We rallied and my son put himself through university by working in a pub and looking after himself - without a single penny from us because we had nothing.

My point is real poverty grows on you and as the things you have become obsolete or break, the poverty deepens. We are now three adults living on ?23 a day. Admittedly we have our rent and rates paid. As heart patients we have been instructed to stay warm in the winter as the cold thickens the blood. To this end I contacted my gas and electric supplier in a bid to have the prepayment meters taken out of my home as the tariff was too high and my income was so low. I was told it would cost ?200.

I told the supplier that the meters were in place from a former tenant and I had no credit issues with them. They told me it was not their problem. I went to the ombudsman and now I can have the meters taken out if I pay for the energy by direct debit, the rub being that I have to pay in advance, costing me 79% of my income in one month for this to happen. So it can't and they know it.

Every day I shop for the house. I am conscious of the need to eat healthily but I cannot afford to. Every day I walk past the grapes and look at the price of strawberries. We eat greens and pulses, and we eat pork, but cannot afford chicken. We do not drink, smoke, go out nor entertain and life is hard and getting harder, not just for us but for many.

The television is our only window on a life we once led. We sit destroyed by poverty and watch the world go by as if we were dead but have yet to fall over. While watching the TV we see MPs and MEPs who spend more on taxis than we get to live on and they are telling the country they are going to get tough on us and people like us because we live on benefits.

In relative terms we are poor and getting poorer, but those who represent us are completely oblivious to our needs.

I can speak, but have no voice, and those claiming to represent me have failed me. As the gas and electric prices rise for all, they may also become out of reach for many. Now I fear the winter and hope for nothing.

The BBC news now tells me my benefits will be scrapped and I will be tested (I have been tested twice already). I will have to bare all my privacy in the hope of retaining the right to survive the winter. So I ask myself, why can people demand the destruction of the poor? The answer is simple. There are 600-odd vacancies in Westminster every four years. The job, if you can get it, pays a king's ransom and all that is required is that you follow whatever is in vogue. At the moment, acting Dickensian is all the rage.

Name and address supplied

[indiepanda]

Sad story, but I don't think these people are the people who the benefit reforms are being aimed at - it's not those with demonstrable medical conditions they are trying to get off benefit.

It's those who are in the more subjective catagories - e.g. people who have been signed off with work related stress and could retrain to do do something less stressful rather than claim benefit for many years.

I gather (from having seen a presentation by a doctor who has been working with the government on getting people back into work) that a large number of people on benefits have conditions which all of us suffer from to some extent but most of us manage to work with - like stress, back and joint pain etc.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Yep - it is a moving story. Well told too. But do you think there is a major divide, breaking down along these lines:

sad cases like the above

AND

subjective cases which need "retraining"

AND

out and out scroungers

what percentage would you put those 3 categories? And do you think category 1 would not suffer as a result of these reforms?

I KNOW 2 and 3 exist - I just don't believe they are they main bulk of claimants. And these reforms are easy and pathetic macho posturing which play to the gallery. If the reforms are pushed through as claimed (and be honest, which reforms ever are) it will not make one JOT of difference to your life or mine. But those people in category 1 (ie genuine) will see a lot of people humiliated or worse.

I have been knocked on here before for suggesting that people who litter deserve the punishment they get (moral high horse etc) - and yet people are happy to see reforms like this passed, knowing that innocent people will be turned over? For what - a tiny tiny percent of government funds misused? My mind boggles sometimes...

[indiepanda]

Good point Sean. I don't know how the mix of people really breaks down, though from some comments I've heard, I think class 2 may not be as small as you think. Probably more than just retraining to help though - some therapy too.

It's hard, the more money we spend on people who shouldn't really be claiming, the less there is for the deserving cases, but then if we spend too much money trying to reassess people to find out who is really deserving long term, we don't end up saving any money and end up putting people through a lot of humiliation in the meantime.

[snoozequeen1]

indiepanda Wrote:

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> Sad story, but I don't think these people are the

> people who the benefit reforms are being aimed at

> - it's not those with demonstrable medical

> conditions they are trying to get off benefit.

>

Yes, it is, ip. They are going to make every person in the country who receives sickness benefit reapply for it. Let's remember this is the sickness benefit that we pay for every month through national insurance contributions which are taken by the government direct from our salaries. Yet if you get sick and try to claim on your "insurance", they will treat you like a criminal from day one, regardless of how seriously ill you may be. Their favourite trick already is to lose applications, refuse and delay until very ill and exhausted people give up in despair or are about to die anyway.

Arbeit macht frei, I suppose.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Cheers Indie

if the real objective was to target class 2 and figure out how best to motivate them then I can't see too much of a problem - but the reality is.. that isn't the motivation behind this effort

Plus - what is so wrong with class 2 REALLY? Are all of us so perfect and efficient we don't need "lessons" in how to "be better motivated" and "be better citizens"? Sometimes it is good to just be.... demotivated and have "blinds drawn all day, nothing to do nothing to say". But friends, family and our inner core will kick in and remotivate us usually - not many people will benefit from a stick beating us back to work. A few people I'm sure.. but not enough to warrant THIS

[indiepanda]

The story I read on BBCi said they are looking to get 1 million out of 4.5 million on "out of work" benfits back into work over a 7 year period. Which isn't the same as trying to cancel everyone's benefit.

I'm sure there is a lot of pain caused by the process and it could be improved considerably, but if you try to go through the same process with an insurance company you'll find that isn't exactly easy either. I've been treated like a criminal for daring to claim on my private medical insurance this year as it was the first year I was insured via my current employer, even though I've had cover via previous employers for over 10 years and never claimed.

National Insurance isn't really insurance anyway - no insurance company would get away with changing the rules as often as the government do. It's just a tax by a nicer name.

[SeanMacGabhann]

well precisely Indiepanda - just because insurance companies mess up so often shows it's not a model to follow!

Do these not strike you as arbitrary numbers/targets? What if only 250000 people need that "treatment" - hey - targets have to be met!

[indiepanda]

Well, the study I saw showed that most people who were out of work were considerably less happy for it, so could argue it's our duty to help people go back if they can.

Though I agree when all is said and done the government's main concern os getting the benefit bill down!

I visited a friend of mine at the weekend who is registered disabled due to spine problems - she's got a rod in her back. On top of this, she fell down stairs earlier on this year and still can't drive, only just able to dress herself properly, in a lot of pain. Despite that she can't wait to get back to her teaching job, she really loves it and I can see if she couldn't get back she'd be really miserable

[indiepanda]

Yes, agree it's all quite arbitary Sean. Whole thing does smack a bit of the government trying to find a way of reigning in spending now we are up to eyes in debt.

And agree we wouldn't want to copy the worst of insurance companies (they aren't always bad, much to my surprise!)

I'd rather the government saved some cash by quitting getting us into wars we shouldn't be in - Iraq must have cost us a fortune!

[SeanMacGabhann]

Still - it's all something to mull over on Saturday isn't it ;-)

But I would say it isn't about government reigning in spending now it's ADMITTED it's level of debt - it's far more to do with how low it is in the polls against the Tories and needing to be seen to be TOUGH on scroungers. It's one of the reasons New Labour is morally more bankrupt than the Tories

[macroban]

We've been here before...

I'm not sure if anyone will read the reference, though. If you do some aspects will seem familiar. The government may have had a current account deficit (like now) but then the country was a creditor nation (not so sure about that now).

[Shu.Kurimu.Sensei]

The government is going to lose more money on staff costs, checks etc., not to mention cash on PR, backlashes, medical care for staff who get physically abused trying to enforce this nonsense.

They'd get a hell of a lot more people back into work by abolishing the nonsense of only allowing unemployed people to study for more than 16 bloody hours a week and fund [not cut back on as they are doing now] more adult education plus help more towards "concession" fees, which are still, for the most part, too expensive for unemployed people.

[indiepanda]

Amen to that Sean. I can't believe some of the things Labour have done - I'm not a socialist, but I'd have felt really betrayed by them if I was.

Tuition fees for university was the one that really drove me mad - would have scared me silly if I was going to uni now, although I think I might have got something towards it under means testing.

If they didn't have ridiculous targets of getting 50% of people to be university graduates when much less than 50% of jobs need degrees they wouldn't need to ask people to pay. Another example of the ill thought through targets you mentioned earlier IMO.

[Annasfield]

It's called Welfare Reform and the intention is not to take away incapacity benefit from those that need it. It's designed to make it far more difficult for those who can do some form of work to stop sitting on their backsides and claiming from the State.

I think that those who are already in receipt of SPSIB will maintain the status quo, however in the next few years, assessments will be made to ascertain if they really need the full benefit and whether or not a return to work programme would be more suitable. From October, any new claims will be assessed in the new manner with full benefit being paid to those who really need it.

The onus is also being placed on employers to keep people in the workplace, instead of off loading them when they are incapacitated. Have been talking to my clients about it for the past 12 months.

[indiepanda]

What do you do Anna?

[SeanMacGabhann]

cheers Annasfield - I'm not sure what your occupation is (and having met you, apologies - I feel I should) or who your clients are - but if we take the letter I posted (3 posts in) above as an example, how will it make them feel? Or fare?

Your post sounds very much like the "everything will be fine, nothing to worry about here" type I hear from officialdom. The criteria you allude to (eg assessments will be made to ascertain if they really need the full benefit) - what is that assessment based on?

[Rico]

Sad story but a small number like it and those folks will keep getting their benefit. While I appreciate socialists here will never be happy until the system is overhauled into a complete redistribution of wealth (which won't work and never has but we won't agree), I think the overwhelming majority of folks see this is common sense, reasonable and what good Gov't is about.

[indiepanda]

I'm no socialist. And certainly not up for total redistribution of wealth. What would have been the point in me working hard and having spent years doing professional exams and fucking up my social life in the process for ages to just give back everything extra I earn in tax.

But there is often a big gap between Gov't rhetoric and practice and sometimes that gap hurts most the people that least deserve it. Child Support Agency sounded like a good idea in theory and that has never worked. If this works as I've heard it should work from one of the doctors who advised the government it'd be good, but we all know someone will make mistakes somewhere along the line. Which is not to say they shouldn't try, but shouldn't underestimate the pain that change can cause if not sensitively handled.

[Marmora Man]

sorry MM but that is just repulsive. Apart from this idea that ALL of our money is being wasted, the reality is somewhat different - how, as an incentivised officer do you deal with:

Why is Frank Field?s suggestion so repulsive? Incentivising people to do what is wanted is normal behaviour in all walks of life.

I won't deal with the case described in the letter ? it reads more like a morality play than real life and arguing from the specific to the general is not good logic. However, it is this sort of family / individual that needs help ? and would not be targeted under these proposals.

Characterising the proposed change as an attack on disabled / disadvantaged people is very poor thinking. I believe the government proposals are flawed and won?t achieve all their objectives but the basic premise that society (not just government) should help those in real need and weed out those who seek to exploit the system, seems a worthwhile task to me.

Every ?scrounger? who settles for IB for the rest of their potential working life is stealing funds and assistance from those that could really do with help and support.

Taking your later point about three classes of benefit recipients:

Class 1: Genuine individuals in need of major support and assistance, possibly for life. (as per Guardian letter)

Class 2: Subjective cases which need retraining ? and could return to paid work

Class 3: Out and out scroungers

There are reputed to be 2.5 million people on Incapacity Benefit. At present few have any real help, beyond basic financial help, to get off the IB and into work.

Assume one Social Security area is responsible for 50,000 such people, with a staff / client ratio of 1 : 100, that?s 500 staff. If each client, at present, receives ?150 a week - that?s a ?390 million pa benefits cost. If 20% of the 50,000 people were in classes 2 & 3 and are helped to get off benefits and back into work that would mean 10,000 people regaining the dignity and self belief that your letter writer bemoans the loss of. It is also a potential saving of ?78 million. Putting, say, ?5 million into the incentivisation pool is the equivalent of ?10,000 per member of staff ? why would you argue with rewarding staff for assisting that 20% out of benefits and ensuring the remaining 80% benefit from improved staff / client ratios at the very least? Equally it also leaves ?73 million to be used to do one, some or all of the following:

a. Increase benefits for those that really need them ? benefits could be increased by almost 20% at no further cost to the Exchequer or taxpayer if all ?73 million were used in this way.

b. Reduce the cost of the benefits / tax system

c. Invest in appropriate businesses that some of the people in Class 1 could perhaps work in, something like the Poppy Appeal factory in Richmond and similar organisations elsewhere (tho' the Gov't withdrew support for many of these about 18 months ago).

SCaled up the total "savings" for re-investment in some form or other would be roughly ?3.5 billion - that would allow the government to re-instate the 10p tax band.

[Asset]

It'll be great when the Tories get in and factor more of the running of services, e.g. the Health Service, to private companies.

[indiepanda]

Like the hosptial cleaning that went to private companies, and now we have people dying from MRSA and other superbugs in all our hospitals?

[whitehouse92]

indiepanda Wrote:

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> Like the hosptial cleaning that went to private

> companies, and now we have people dying from MRSA

> and other superbugs in all our hospitals?

The prevalence of MRSA is related more to good / bad clinical practice than cleaning techniques / practice.