Tories are certainly getting stuck into our benefits system...

StevieJ

mbga9pgf wrote: »

Who cares? they should have worked harder at school. As a high rate tax payer they are not my problem; perhaps they should have thought about their futures when they embarked on a life of sitting on their @rse watching JK.

They need suck it up; it will teach them a lesson in life, that you dont get owt for nowt. Painful medicine, I am sick of workshy lazy tw@'s leeching valuable resources off this once great nation.

If the Eastern Europeans do head back, as I say, get a spade, there will be plenty of veg to dig on minimum wage.

You really are a nasty piece of work.

StevieJ

shebrett wrote: »

Maybe the govt should approach this from another direction. The benefit system needs to be there and it really doesn't pay that much money if you're honest. If you really want to work but can't find anything, then having no spare money at the end of the week would be completely demoralising I think.

It's those who sit on it their whole life and see it as their right that really P&%s me off. The govt should start offering people a finder's fee. If you grass up a dole cheat, you get 5% of what the govt save in the first year from catching them out......reckon that would work faster than anything else....and probably be cheaper than a whole department of people employed to do just that.

Probably be more rewarding for the govt if that was 'grass up a tax cheat'.

Pennywise

The "there aren't any jobs anyway" excuse is frankly pathetic.

Why should anyone be allowed to get away with not working (unless they have a real disability).

Benefits and wages levels are very similar at the lower end of the scale, so a lazy scrounger getting a job just means that someone else will be unemployed until they, in turn, get a job. That sounds quite fair to me - some time working, other time on benefits.

What some posters seem to be saying is that they're happy for someone else to do the work whilst they sit on their backsides all day, every day, for their entire working life, letting the other poor sods work to pay for it. How is that fair?

lemonjelly

lemonjelly wrote: »

Great post.

I work with a great number of people on benefits.
In my view, there are lots of issues with the benefits system. If some of these issues were resolved, I feel it could positively impact on benefit claimants, as well as non-claimants.

Disability benefits should be better investigated. That investigation needs to be thorough, but also sensitive. There are people out there who have spurious disability claims. If we had a more appropriate process, the genuine claims would pass, and the number of fraudulent claims would be reduced. Further, if claims were properly assessed, this would reduce the numbers of appeals made because of poor decisions.

Co-habitation is also a bigger issue than a lot of people are aware. There are a heck of a lot of "lone parents" with a partner living with them. Again weed out these fraudulent claims, & this would benefit the whole system.

Tax credits are ridiculously manipulated by the self employed out there.

However, I assume that you are all aware that the benefits system loses more each year because of errors, rather than fraud? Historically, this has consistently been the case.

In my mind, the processes & systems in benefits administration need radically over-hauling to improve efficiency, reduce errors, & ensure appropriate benefit payments are made to those in genuine need.

However, the sense of superiority displayed by some on here beggars belief. It is very easy to end up at the bottom of the pile, or on the scrap heap. All it takes is the wrong boy/girlfriend, the wrong collection of friends, the wrong boss, a business going under, a redundancy notice.

lemonjelly wrote: »

750k jobs.
8 million economically inactive, & by the rationale displayed on here, most of those should be working.
So back to the point robin banks asked earlier on the thread - what do you expect all these people to do?

Tone of this thread is very interesting, & also very heated. Way too many insults being thrown around.

What concerns me is that there are a hell of a lot of people commenting on the benefits system, where in reality, they clearly have no real idea or experience of it. Kind of reminds me about how people are all for cuts, until it affects services they use.

There is also a massive theme on here where clearly many who don't claim benefits see themselves as far superior to those who do find that they will, or have to claim benefits. Naturally, if the worse was to happen to them, they would still, owing to their obvious superiority, be able to provide an income for their family.

The above 2 paras worry me.

I really do fail to see how people can comment effectively on how to reign in the benefits service when the only real notion they have of it is what they have read in the mail, & what they imagine it to be. Without direct experience, all you have is a series of generalisations, ill-thought out notions, & flawed logic.

Conversely, I have almost 15 years experience in this field. I can see a significant number of areas where we could gain efficiency savings, reduce costs, & improve the overall system/service.

We keep getting some people, however, returning to the idea of "throw em on the dole, let em starve, & fcuk em". I have to wonder what level of humanity exists in these posters.

We have almost 3 million unemployed. Overall, we have almost 8 million economically inactive. The government hopes to move 1 million from incapacity benefits to JSA. That puts us towards 4 million unemployed. We are also going to be seeing staffing reductions in the public sector. Where will we be then? 4.5 million? Higher? Okay. Then, in a few weeks, we will have the college, school & university leavers. I doubt they're going to walk into jobs eh? So what will they do? Sign on? Will that put us at over 5 million?

Robin banks asked early on in this thread, what do we expect all these people to do? We have 750k vacancies. Probably mainly part time, & probably temporary contracts, so this is in no way a resolution.

Education funding for anyone over 18 is being cut (at colleges & universities), so retraining is difficult & likely to cost money.

Where are the real suggestions?

Where are the human beings?

I have re-read the thread & there is no real response to the issues I have raised in the posts I've quoted (aside from 1 sentance).

Would you give your car to a gardener to identify & carry out repairs? I don't think so. Perhaps we should look a little more for answers/ideas and suggestions from people who do understand the system, rather than look at the vitriol we appear to be getting from many on here.

kennyboy66_2

Pennywise wrote: »

The "there aren't any jobs anyway" excuse is frankly pathetic.

It's not only pathetic, its wrong.

Provided work pays more than benefits, which it will have to, forcing people back to work will lift the whole economy little by little.

My view is that anyone working should be at least £50 a week better off than being on benefits. Maybe this means as well as reducing benefits that tax credits have to stay in place to make people have an incentive to work.

ILW

lemonjelly wrote: »

Tone of this thread is very interesting, & also very heated. Way too many insults being thrown around.

What concerns me is that there are a hell of a lot of people commenting on the benefits system, where in reality, they clearly have no real idea or experience of it. Kind of reminds me about how people are all for cuts, until it affects services they use.

There is also a massive theme on here where clearly many who don't claim benefits see themselves as far superior to those who do find that they will, or have to claim benefits. Naturally, if the worse was to happen to them, they would still, owing to their obvious superiority, be able to provide an income for their family.

The above 2 paras worry me.

I really do fail to see how people can comment effectively on how to reign in the benefits service when the only real notion they have of it is what they have read in the mail, & what they imagine it to be. Without direct experience, all you have is a series of generalisations, ill-thought out notions, & flawed logic.

Conversely, I have almost 15 years experience in this field. I can see a significant number of areas where we could gain efficiency savings, reduce costs, & improve the overall system/service.

We keep getting some people, however, returning to the idea of "throw em on the dole, let em starve, & fcuk em". I have to wonder what level of humanity exists in these posters.

We have almost 3 million unemployed. Overall, we have almost 8 million economically inactive. The government hopes to move 1 million from incapacity benefits to JSA. That puts us towards 4 million unemployed. We are also going to be seeing staffing reductions in the public sector. Where will we be then? 4.5 million? Higher? Okay. Then, in a few weeks, we will have the college, school & university leavers. I doubt they're going to walk into jobs eh? So what will they do? Sign on? Will that put us at over 5 million?

Robin banks asked early on in this thread, what do we expect all these people to do? We have 750k vacancies. Probably mainly part time, & probably temporary contracts, so this is in no way a resolution.

Education funding for anyone over 18 is being cut (at colleges & universities), so retraining is difficult & likely to cost money.

Where are the real suggestions?

Where are the human beings?

I have re-read the thread & there is no real response to the issues I have raised in the posts I've quoted (aside from 1 sentance).

Would you give your car to a gardener to identify & carry out repairs? I don't think so. Perhaps we should look a little more for answers/ideas and suggestions from people who do understand the system, rather than look at the vitriol we appear to be getting from many on here.

At the point where we do not need to bring in a single person from abroad to do an unskilled job (cleaning, fruit picking etc) I will take your argument about there being no work around seriously. Until then it is a matter of choosing not to work, aided by a system that gives that choice.

StevieJ

ILW wrote: »

At the point where we do not need to bring in a single person from abroad to do an unskilled job (cleaning, fruit picking etc) I will take your argument about there being no work around seriously. Until then it is a matter of choosing not to work, aided by a system that gives that choice.

We do not bring them in they arrive here because we have freedom of movement of Labour in the EC, it serves a purpose for the govt and industry in undermining the pay for lower paid workers.

lemonjelly

ILW wrote: »

At the point where we do not need to bring in a single person from abroad to do an unskilled job (cleaning, fruit picking etc) I will take your argument about there being no work around seriously. Until then it is a matter of choosing not to work, aided by a system that gives that choice.

We have a system where employers want to pay less than minimum wage, don't want to pay NI, don't want to pay taxes.

Employers will do all they can to reduce costs. That is all an employee is - a cost. If they can get cheaper labour by paying £2 an hour cash in hand, they will.

If we continue to resist paying people a living wage, the benefits bill will always be high.

Employers are already subsidised by tax credits.

Exactly how many breaks do employers need?

StevieJ wrote: »

We do not bring them in they arrive here because we have freedom of movement of Labour in the EC, it serves a purpose for the govt and industry in undermining the pay for lower paid workers.

ILW

StevieJ wrote: »

We do not bring them in they arrive here because we have freedom of movement of Labour in the EC, it serves a purpose for the govt and industry in undermining the pay for lower paid workers.

We do in effect bring them in by having "spare" jobs that people already here are given the option of refusing to do and taking benefits instead.

Alan_Cross

StevieJ wrote: »

We do not bring them in they arrive here because we have freedom of movement of Labour in the EC, it serves a purpose for the govt and industry in undermining the pay for lower paid workers.

Exactly.

A situation the Tories love more than any other party, you can bet your life.

At least Labour brought in a minimum wage safety net, something fought against tooth and nail by the Tories.

The truly astonishing thing in this assault on average and lower incomes is that they have not got around to abolishing it - a fact we can probably put down to Libdem agonising over not wanting to perform yet another sell out.