what they really want to do?

[morwen]

The Government announced today a radical reform to the welfare system, the largest shakeup in 233 years since the Poor Law of 1601 was introduced. A new "eligibility" test will be introduced to ensure that people capable of working will have to, and a network of support organisations set up to provide help.

"In many cases the problem is not that there aren't jobs: there are", said the Secretary of State in a speech last night. "The problem is that people are too proud to take the jobs they can get. The way to solve this is to take pride out of the equation by utterly humiliating them."

The plans call for those claiming benefits at present to be divided into several categories. Those "genuinely physically unable to do manual work, such as quadriplegics" will continue to recieve payments to sustain themselves in the community - to be called "outdoor relief". The rest will be encouraged to find work - which they should be able to accept as because any work available should be more eligible than no work.

A network of "productivity homes" will be set up throughout the country, under local authority and faith control. These productivity homes will provide facilities for people who are unable to look after themselves or cannot find work. Those able to will be set to useful tasks to defray the cost of the productivity homes, which will also be funded by a tax on the rentable value of property within the local area. Residents of productivity homes will be confined to the house at all hours whilst living there, in order to prevent them secretly taking jobs. They will, of course, be free to leave entirely and move back into the wider society at any time.

Comments

[tankgirlinblack.livejournal.com]

*bangs head against wall*

I know people that have been 'on the sick' mainly to stop them clogging up the unemployment statistics. There isn't the same outrage at high levels of people claiming disablity benefits as there is for the unemployment statistics, so that's where they go.
If the government stopped focussing on statistics, they could reduce those claiming disablity benefits overnight.
I fail to see how these proposals will stop this pratice, or the persistant fraudulant claimants(who know the system better then those administering it), But I do see how it will put unfair and undue stress and pressure on those who cannot work especially for mental and difficilt to quantify physical(back pain etc) reasons.

I agree there needs to be an overhaul of the benefits system in general. People who can work need to be made to as much as possible. Benefits are there for when you can do nothing to fund yourself, not because you don't want to. How people live on benefits though I don't know, (unless they do cash-in-hand work)as the payments are tiny (under £60 a week I believe).

I don't know what the answer is, but then I'm not being paid to come up with it. This proposal just seems to be pandering to the Daily Mailesque views of 'getting those workshy lazy bastards that I'm paying taxes so they can live in luxury' back into work, rather than being of any help.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

They're still quite a way from actually reintroducing workhouses, as I euphemistically suggest in my short satire, but the language and attitude in the actual recent announcements is exactly the same 19th century attitude - the modern phrasing and jargon fits like a glove onto the practices introduced by Poor Law Amendment Act 1835 (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Lpoor1834.htm), denounced by Dickens and then abolished in the 1930s.

[secretlondon.livejournal.com]

You should know a couple of things:

You need to be signed off by your GP in the first place.

The government employs doctors to assess you as well as they don't trust your GP. You get checked by the state doctor every year.

It's really hard to get incapacity benefit as well as jumping through the hoops you need to have a certain level of national insurance contributions. With my current claim I qualify - previously I haven't and have ended up on income support due to sickness - which has many times more claimants as this is where most people (especially those who haven't ever worked) end up.

Nobody can live on £60 a week. If you are unemployed you are fit and have the ability to look after yourself cheaply.

The crap about millions of scroungers dates back to when Labour were in opposition - they claimed the only reason the Tories had got unemployment down was that they'd stuck everyone on sickness benefit. This story seems to have stuck - that the disabled are on the scrounge - the undeserving poor living the high life on their 60 quid a week.

[tankgirlinblack.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't think I was saying the disabled are on the scrounge. That's not what I ment at all. I know poeple whove applied for certain disablity benefits. The questions are intrusive, and people who answer them honestly, dispite chronic illness have been refused any benefits at all simply because they are able to work part time >:-(

But, I know of people in areas of high unemployment who while being perfectly fit, have been signed off sick. They are either fantastic liers, or being a statistic moved away from unemploment benefits. Either way, it's out of order, especially when help is being denied to people genuinly suffering, because they are not suffering quite enough. Like I said, unless you are on the take, or would be on unemployment benefit anyway(same money, different statistic) I fail to see why you would *choose* to be on the sick.