John Humphrys - Future State of Welfare BBC 2/HD

[Fittster]

alock said:

No large public sector department would ever say it could be downsized or simplified.

There has been a significant reduction in the number of people working at the HMRC.


"He confirmed that staff numbers had reduced by about 17,000 from about 105,000, as part of a strategy to improve HMRC's efficiency by 5% year-on-year to 2011. "

[martin84]

Sticks. said:

voyds9 said:

The idea of proving you are looking for work before benefits kick in is inspired.

Didn't see it, and my iPlayer not working, but this is already the case for JSA isn't it? Has been for years afaik.

Sort of. We saw in the American one the first thing you have to do upon point of contact is prove you're looking for work. Here you can open your claim online or on the phone, then your claim is open and 'live' before you have a meeting at a Job Centre which is typically within 3 days of opening your claim where you'll do all the paperwork and ID checks and discuss what sort of work you wish to look for and its not until your next standard signing on appointment which can be 2 weeks after that appointment (the day of the week you'll sign on is dependant on the letters of your NI number) and then you'll be asked to show what you've done over that two weeks to find work.

In truth the scrutiny of whether you've looked for work or not is pretty slack as they do like to trust what people are saying which is very reasonable but if the Job Centre print you out job details you must apply for it, they may or may not check up to find out if you have but if they do and you havent you will be under much closer scrutiny from then on.

Digga said:

The solution is simple with regards to benefits - they must be overhauled to ensure they are a safety net and not a lifestyle

Agreed. Ive always agreed on that but the question is how? How do we protect the people who cant get a job and need the help without making the state benefit option an 'easy' one to take in life for others? Thats the 64 million dollar question.

Digga said:

Unless you have been exposed to the culture, it sounds like right-wing propaganda - an outright attack on all that is 'right' about the welfare system. As you say, it does exist and the cost to all of us, both on and off the dole, is too high to be sustained.

I never denied it exists but my experiences have been different, when i was a Job Centre advisor i met a lot of older people out of work for the first time since they left school and clueless about what to do next, the mother with 7 kids who's not gone to work in 20 years was a rare case to come up on my screen. As we saw with that training place they put people on and comments of everyone being 'treated the same' and some feeling patronised that illustrates my point that we shouldnt lump 'everyone on benefits' as all being the same people as (especially now with the economy as it is) you're lumping engineers with 30 years experience and feckless dole que experts in the same group and i think thats wrong.

rich1231 said:

7 children, not worked for 20 years.

The system is completely broken if whilst on benefits we continue to reward increasingly wreckless behaviour with no responsibility being shouldered by claimants.

This is the most confusing part. Why would anybody without work and dependant on the state want to bring more children into the world in a household like that? I wouldnt. You wouldnt. Most people here wouldnt. Its easy to limit the child benefit but then the Guardian claim its akin to the Chinese 1 child per family era. Theres already procedures to investigate someone claiming as a 'single parent' who then becomes pregnant and child benefit has been cut from when the child is 7 to 5 as stated in the program. It may be possible to push through a system where if on benefits for more than a year you're not entitled to child benefit for a subsequent child (and its been spoken of in some quarters) but the problem is what to do with these people NOW. The people like this woman with 7 kids, what do we do with them now? You cant take the benefit away because then the only people who will suffer is the children and its not their fault they were born into that, or take them into care but that puts financial strain on social services as well. This is the dilemma.

[MartyPubes]

martin84 said:

How do we protect the people who cant get a job and need the help without making the state benefit option an 'easy' one to take in life for others? Thats the 64 million dollar question.

You don't. There's no way a system like this will help the deserving and ONLY the deserving. What you've got is a choice as to where to draw the line. At the minute we've drawn the line so that the deserving get help, but there's a fairly large chunk on the undeserving who also benefit. From that I took from that programme, in the US they've drawn the line in a different place, and some of the deserving are fked in an attempt to cut out the undeserving.

It's a choice we need to make as a nation, but either way there's going to be an outraged story in the Daily Mail.

[RYH64E]

MartyPubes said:

You don't. There's no way a system like this will help the deserving and ONLY the deserving. What you've got is a choice as to where to draw the line. At the minute we've drawn the line so that the deserving get help, but there's a fairly large chunk on the undeserving who also benefit. From that I took from that programme, in the US they've drawn the line in a different place, and some of the deserving are fked in an attempt to cut out the undeserving.

It's a choice we need to make as a nation, but either way there's going to be an outraged story in the Daily Mail.

I don't believe that the deserving get much help anyway, if you have been sensible enough to save a bit that pretty much excludes you from assistance regardless of how much you may have contributed over the years.

[JagLover]

RYH64E said:

I don't believe that the deserving get much help anyway, if you have been sensible enough to save a bit that pretty much excludes you from assistance regardless of how much you may have contributed over the years.

This

Lavish benefits may be available to the feckless but those paying for it find it a very poor safety net indeed if they fall on hard times. By contrast in many European countries those who find themselves jobless receive benefits at a sizeable percentage of their former salary for sometime after losing their job.

[martin84]

RYH64E said:

I don't believe that the deserving get much help anyway, if you have been sensible enough to save a bit that pretty much excludes you from assistance regardless of how much you may have contributed over the years

Depends on how you define 'the deserving' really. To me the deserving are people who are unable to get work but are trying to. Not everybody has been able to save money or be in a halfway decent enough job to do so and again we come back to the question of 'does earning money and having savings mean you deserve more benefits' and i dont think it does.

MartyPubes said:

From that I took from that programme, in the US they've drawn the line in a different place, and some of the deserving are fked in an attempt to cut out the undeserving.

Yes its clear thats how they've worked it but i dont think it'd work here, if any Government did that here they'd be rendered unelectable. With the Conservative's not even having a majority, doing something like that probably wont earn them one. It was said in that show 92% of people agree the safety net should be there but i think less than half agree that it works effectively at the moment. The public will not accept a system which fks over some of the deserving just to save money.

JagLover said:

By contrast in many European countries those who find themselves jobless receive benefits at a sizeable percentage of their former salary for sometime after losing their job.

Yes ive heard about that system before but surely in a case of - for example - you get 70% of your former salary for the first 12 months on benefits, the question which has to be asked is where is the incentive to go back to work in those 12 months? That would be the question asked instantly here. The Welfare state isnt set up to reward people who have money by giving them more money courtesy of the state, thats not what its for.

[RYH64E]

martin84 said:

Depends on how you define 'the deserving' really. To me the deserving are people who are unable to get work but are trying to. Not everybody has been able to save money or be in a halfway decent enough job to do so and again we come back to the question of 'does earning money and having savings mean you deserve more benefits' and i dont think it does.

To me the deserving are those whose, often substantial, contributions help to fund the system.

Plenty of my friends have been made redundant over the years, to the best of my knowledge none of them have ever had any assistance other than the minimum payment that you get for (I think) the first 6 months. The system appears to say, spend all of your hard earned savings then, when you have nothing left, you might get some assistance. Of course, if you've never put any money aside, live in rented accomodation, and have plenty of kids, then there is help from day one.

[thinfourth2]

martin84 said:

How do we protect the people who cant get a job and need the help without making the state benefit option an 'easy' one to take in life for others? Thats the 64 million dollar question.

The answer sounds insane but its not

You give everyone in the UK the same level of benefits no matter how little or how much they work along with a higher level of income tax so no matter how little you work it always means you are better off.

[martin84]

RYH64E said:

To me the deserving are those whose, often substantial, contributions help to fund the system.

But if we encourage these people onto higher benefits due to their contributions then they wont be going to work and paying substantial contributions to fund the system and they then end up the ones syphoning it off for themselves. Sort of a middle class benefit fraud. The Daily Mail wouldnt know whether to support or criticise.

RHY64E said:

Plenty of my friends have been made redundant over the years, to the best of my knowledge none of them have ever had any assistance other than the minimum payment that you get for (I think) the first 6 months.

In their cases the household income obviously exceeded the threshold within which you'd be entitled to more. Or they held more than £16,000 in savings. If they were working for 2 years prior to claiming they'd have received Contributions Based JSA (if they werent working at all they'd have received nothing, so contributions are taken into account) which you are entitled to for 6 months.

RHY64E said:

The system appears to say, spend all of your hard earned savings then, when you have nothing left, you might get some assistance.

Because thats when you become someone who needs the money, because you havent got any. The welfare system is there to help people with no money to survive, not to reward those who've earned money by throwing money at them. The welfare system is not a reward scheme for people who've earned money, thats not what its for. 'You earned 30k for 5 years, now you're unemployed, here have 25k in benefits' wheres the incentive to work for that year?

RHY64E said:

Of course, if you've never put any money aside, live in rented accomodation, and have plenty of kids, then there is help from day one.

Well plenty of people never had the option of putting money aside and literally do live payday to payday and homeowners are a minority in Britain now as im sure you know. The children bit is an interesting discussion i dont feel people should be having kids when they're unemployed and dependant on state funds.

Edited by martin84 on Friday 28th October 22:26

[Otispunkmeyer]

voyds9 said:

Watched found some interesting ideas but spent most of my time swearing at the do-gooders. Especailly the one in Islington who said it was only fair to pay over £2000 per month for housing as it would be unfair to ask these families to move to a cheaper area.
The other silly bint who was complaining she got £20 child benefit for the first child but only £13 for the second, as she said it cost as much to feed the second as the first. Yes you silly sod it does but buy a large can of beans instead of 2 small ones.
The idea of proving you are looking for work before benefits kick in is inspired.

What I got from all the "its not worth working on the min wage because it amounts to working for nothing and we're better off on benefits" is that everyone is completely short sighted.... ok the job is minimum wage, but think of it as a foot in the door, the spring board on to better things. Work hard, pull your weight and you never know where you might end up. None of them seem to see it like this, just that its a min wage job therefore not worth their time. Granted a lot of min wage jobs might be dead end, but I would argue that if you put enough effort in and thought for your self once in a while the job doesn't have to be dead end.

[martin84]

Otispunkmeyer said:

What I got from all the "its not worth working on the min wage because it amounts to working for nothing and we're better off on benefits" is that everyone is completely short sighted.... ok the job is minimum wage, but think of it as a foot in the door,

Very good point ive been meaning to bring this up myself as thats always the part most people ignore. If you live on benefits then you'll always be at that level, you'll never improve and you'll never have more. Go on benefits at 20 and live on them and you'll die on them having achieved nothing. You take a job paying very little more but within a couple of years you could be earning more than that. Its not like because you take a job in a supermarket on minimum wage that you'll retire there.

[hidetheelephants]

thinfourth2 said:

supersingle said:

Means tested benefits will always produce perverse outcomes.

We need to replace the lot with a citizens income. No more dole, housing benefit, pension or disability benefit.

What a citizen's income won't cover can be handled by charity. Government is terrible at identifying the truely needy, charities do much better.

Such a system would reduce poverty and inequality and is supported by elements of both the left and right.

Sadly no politican would have the balls to bring it in due to the daily wail screaming about giving money to rich people.


Its a bone crushingly fair system. No need to force people towards work as it cost not a penny more for some one to sit on their arse all day. No poverty trap as any job that pays more then transport costs sees you better off.

This is it; what else do we need? At a stroke you encourage people to get off their arse and find ANY work, remove the need for thousands of DWP personnel and render the dole so simple even Crapita could produce a robust IT system to administer it with. Oh yes, it would also save all the trees that get cut down to produce the endless forms that job centres are filled with.

[MartyPubes]

Otispunkmeyer said:

What I got from all the "its not worth working on the min wage because it amounts to working for nothing and we're better off on benefits" is that everyone is completely short sighted.... ok the job is minimum wage, but think of it as a foot in the door, the spring board on to better things. Work hard, pull your weight and you never know where you might end up. None of them seem to see it like this, just that its a min wage job therefore not worth their time. Granted a lot of min wage jobs might be dead end, but I would argue that if you put enough effort in and thought for your self once in a while the job doesn't have to be dead end.

They also have to show up every day at the minimum wage job, and do things they might not want to do. It requires some degree of self-discipline. This is as much the problem as the financial penalties.

[randlemarcus]

hidetheelephants said:

even Crapita could produce a robust IT system to administer it with

There is a limit to the fantastical off-topicness that the Internet can sustain

[Shay HTFC]

thinfourth2 said:

It was st

Not once did he kill any poor people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016ltsh/The_...

You're getting boring with the anti-left bravado, thinforth.

Anyway, good to see the BBC picking up on the fact that the benefits system is undeniably broken. Kind of a big deal when the BBC goes against social policy. But they're right though cos the system is just wrong - simple as.
I think the time has come where the vast majority of people in the UK (even some harder-core lefties) agree that the system is bust and that its crazy to effectively pay people not to work.

I reckon changes are a coming.

[JagLover]

martin84 said:

The Welfare state isnt set up to reward people who have money by giving them more money courtesy of the state, thats not what its for.

We pay national INSURANCE the whole point of which was that it was supposed to be a countrywide insurance scheme. You paid in and you received a state pension at the end of your working life and a decent slice of your former wage for a time you might be unemployed during that working life.

Both the state pension and contributory out of work benefits you receive have fallen further and further behind earnings so it is no longer fullfilling its purpose as an insurance scheme. Massive amounts are paid in national insurance though, both by employees and employers, so where is the money going-the feckless. All in the name of 'targeting' benefits on the 'needy' and such like.

[chris watton]

JagLover said:

martin84 said:

The Welfare state isnt set up to reward people who have money by giving them more money courtesy of the state, thats not what its for.

We pay national INSURANCE the whole point of which was that it was supposed to be a countrywide insurance scheme. You paid in and you received a state pension at the end of your working life and a decent slice of your former wage for a time you might be unemployed during that working life.

Both the state pension and contributory out of work benefits you receive have fallen further and further behind earnings so it is no longer fullfilling its purpose as an insurance scheme. Massive amounts are paid in national insurance though, both by employees and employers, so where is the money going-the feckless. All in the name of 'targeting' benefits on the 'needy' and such like.

I have said this before, but when I was at school, I was taught that my NI contributions were for me, as a safety net in case I needed hospital treatment and/or if I found myself out of work for a short length of time. It was also a contribution to my pension when I got to retirement.

I guess the goal posts have changed since 1983 though...people who contribute nothing get the most of my NI contributions, and income/corporation tax, for that matter. Even that wasn't enough for Labour, they even raided my personal pension! I will never understand why the hard working, especially private sector workers are so persecuted in the eyes of the left.

[Sticks.]

chris watton said:

I guess the goal posts have changed since 1983 though...people who contribute nothing get the most of my NI contributions, and income/corporation tax, for that matter. Even that wasn't enough for Labour, they even raided my personal pension! I will never understand why the hard working, especially private sector workers are so persecuted in the eyes of the left.

The move away from contributions-based unemployment benefits began in the 80s. C1980 you could claim NI unemployment benefit, i.e. not means tested, in respect of your wife, children, plus an earnings-related supplement for 6 months, based on your NI contributions. Later in the 80s over 55s with a pension would have their benefit reduced, as if it was means tested, even though both were contributions based.

I'm sure others will know more about the changes Labour brought in as well.

[cymtriks]

TankRizzo said:

don4l said:

Child benefit should be limited to the first two children.
Don
--

Quite - set a cutoff date of 12 months' time to take into account anyone currently preggers or thereabouts, and thereafter the State will no longer support any child born after this date, where the family already has two children receiving Child Benefit.
You could implement this tomorrow and I don't think 99% of the UK would disagree.

But as has been pointed out is that the second child of the mother, the father, or the couple?

Better still just stop it as described above.

At the moment everyone starts their lives on benefits and anyone having more children than they can afford is rewarded with money taken from everyone else. Putting a stop to child benefit and family credit would send a very clear message.

Interdependent benefits need not be affected, just use the phrase "Would previously have qualified for child benefit" and nothing need change.

The year on year savings will soon add up. Smaller families to couples most influenced by benefits would soon see savings in council housing, education and welfare.

[martin84]

When some of you talk about 'i earned more so i should get more in benefits' what you're talking about is a nectar card like reward scheme where the more you earn and pay the more you get in rewards. Thats not what the Welfare state is for. The Welfare system is there to provide those with no income with the bare minimum required to live, eat and survive, thats what its for. It is not there to provide 40k earners with most of their income in time of sudden unemployment.

People talk about a 'sense of entitlement' well just because you've earned good money before doesnt give you any entitlement to keep receiving such money if you lose your job. You have no entitlement to remain in the same lifestyle should you stop receiving that income. People saying 'i paid a lot of tax for 10 years so im entitled to more benefits now im unemployed' have just the same sense of entitlement as the people you criticise.

Welfare should be there to support people with no income when they cannot get a job but it should not serve as a 'better option' than having a job. Like in that BBC program with the 'why should i bother?' which is in itself a good question and the big one the politicians have to answer but i feel if the state's been providing you with a roof over your head and money to buy food then when you can get a job and do it yourself you should do so to then begin to repay what you've received. That should always be the principle of the system. The state will help you until you can help yourself.

The biggest problem is nothing to do with Governments but is about attitudes and mentalities. The mentality of 'i'll only earn 20 quid more so why should i bother working' is an attitude and mentality problem and no Government can change that, not without draconian measures which will also hurt the people who need the help. People should be thinking 'if i go to work now i might earn more in the future' not 'going to work now i'll get the same as benefits so i wont bother.'