Extra £4bn welfare cut

Shakethedisease

Whilst you may have 4 people currently collection rubbish on a route, you could have 12 people, getting the job done quicker and potentially cheaper as you are only paying the job seekers allowance.

But then you'd put the full-time workers out of a job ? What employer in their right mind is going to keep on all their full-time staff when they can get the job done paying £65 a week ?

And that's the problem with these sorts of ideas. Those 'forced' to work for benefits, would put the full-timers out of work as they undercut them by so much.

It happened when people were in the workhouses. The items and labour they did for the community as a whole, ended up putting others out of work.. and so the cycle continued until there was such an outcry they had to stop them.
Which is why when you see pics of workhouses now, most of the 'work' they are seen doing is unpicking oakum.

( wikipedia : Oakum was at one time made from old tarry ropes and cordage of vessels, and its picking and preparation was a common penal occupation in prisons and workhouses. ).

This 'get em working doing useful jobs and that'll teach them' model doesn't work. They put too many others out of work simply because they ARE so cheap.

Why would you need any full-time rubbish collectors at ALL, when you can have 12 doing it for £65 a week ? You're surely not going to suggest that one week a team gets paid full-time wages, and the next week a team get paid JSA rates for doing exactly the same job ?

Graham_Devon

I'm with ISTL here, and have been on record several times in the past saying the same things.

On a personal level, I don't think any taxpayer would mind paying out for administration and running these solutions. Just as we don't mind paying for prisons, and infact, want more people sent to prisons for crimes commited, even at a higher costs to us.

If people can see something happening for their money, they don't mind shelling out so much.

However, if they see people just sitting at home, or in a lot of cases, causing trouble while they get other peoples money, people get annoyed.

In essence, I actually don't think people would midn the welfare budget going UP if it were to pay for a decent "earn your benefits" scheme which benefitted the public through cleaner, tidier areas, and also had the knock on benefit of weeding out those who simply prefer not to work. If these people are going to have to work for benefits money anyway, they'd likely go out and find themselves a better job than the "earn your benefits" roles.

The biggest thing that people bring into this is stating that these people would have to be paid minimum wage. It's tricky one, but I think it could quite easily be sorted out without paying minimum wage. And personally, I'm only talking a couple of days a week work to earn the benefits, not a 39 hour week.

And there are plenty areas not catered for by existing staff. So no existing employed staff would need to lose their jobs.

lynzpower

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Those jobs still have to have co-ordinated at present.

Let's take the example of rubbish collection.
This has over the years been reduced from weekly collection to fortnightly collection to try and save costs.

Whilst you may have 4 people currently collection rubbish on a route, you could have 12 people, getting the job done quicker and potentially cheaper as you are only paying the job seekers allowance.

It would also go a long way to incenticising people to go out and earn their income instead of sitting at home doing whatever and getting it for nothing

And how do you think that contracted waste contractors and thier lawyers would see the undermining of the contract? Ie the goverment undercutting them? I think that would be contract law city played out with the taxpayer footing the bill any-which-way.

Out of interest, who provides childcare for these people who are forced to work? Is there a huge excess of free childcare places in your area? If not, who will pay for those? I expect its a lot more that 46 pounds per week ,

Graham_Devon

lynzpower wrote: »

Out of interest, who provides childcare for these people who are forced to work? Is there a huge excess of free childcare places in your area? If not, who will pay for those? I expect its a lot more that 46 pounds per week ,

Well there you go. Instant need for a creche of some sort. Instant need for labour. Therefore theres a few jobs for those on benefits for a couple of days a week instantly...to service the others doing work for benefits.

However, I'm ducking out of this conversation. Getting people to work for their benefits is something that simply does not go down well, and in the end, ends up with a label applied to those who are for such a scheme. It really would be quite easy to administer....don't think people paying tax would mind paying for it....and doesn't have to be quite as involved as these discussions always make it out to have to be.

It would literally be a few hours a week to earn your benefits. Would do a world of good for all in my view. It doesn't need to be overly complicated and doesn't need to cost a fortune.

I understand the objections. But don't understand how it's somehow better letting people do what the hell they like and get money for nothing, causing massive divide and bad feeling, and treating these people as somewhat "incapable".

dopester

chucky wrote: »

a very fair point

i think that they should cut them completely then and try and supplement those that need it in a better way - instead of people who "have over X in the bank"

trying to administer something like this and even the possible 'bending of the rules' creates a whole new world of paper and unnecessary job creation to save just £200 that would be a winter fuel allowance.

Good counter. I agree with you about the bureaucracy.

I'm thinking it could be simplified with a formula based on age & value of house. Got a house worth more than £150K house = no entitlement to the Winter Fuel Allowance. To encourage older people to downsize and move.

It's just not right that some couple struggling either in rented or in their first smaller FTB house have to pay full whack, when some pensioners in a 4 bed house, with loads of money in the bank and a nice pension get another glorious subsidy.

Actually, that isn't the way forward, because the valuing and pension thing adds to bureaucracy, but there must be another way to simplify it.

lynzpower

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Well there you go. Instant need for a creche of some sort. Instant need for labour. Therefore theres a few jobs for those on benefits for a couple of days a week instantly...to service the others doing work for benefits.

but youve missed the key bit- who pays for this?

Would you wish to be a childminder looking after and feeding someones elses toddler for a £! a day- cant see childminders rushing to do this.

therefore the taxpayer would have to cough up for this, wont they? In london it can be £50 a DAY for childcare, if someone has 2 under 4 and dont work - a hundred pounds per day for this woman to earn 43 per week?

It just doesnt make fiscal sense.

Yes, we need a solution but spending more in this way isnt it!

I would sooner run some sort of dragons den campaign with people who are unemployed with business ideas that will make money and employ people to pitch against others for free funding and business support from the "dragons".

Creating jobs for people to go into ( and I dont mean a chain gang of people searching for a crisp bag when multi million £ Veolia have got it sorted) is the answer. And reducing tax avoidance by large companies.

how many bus passes could be paid for with Vodaphones skim-off this week?

Its so far the wrong way round I cant believe people on here that I have seen be pretty intelligent in the past, seem to think cuts are the only way out! Bonkers.

Graham_Devon

lynzpower wrote: »

but youve missed the key bit- who pays for this?

Would you wish to be a childminder looking after and feeding someones elses toddler for a £! a day- cant see childminders rushing to do this.

therefore the taxpayer would have to cough up for this, wont they?

I meant that it could be part of the work for benefits scheme.

Have one or two proper childminders employed to run it, and the rest can be done by "work for benefits".

You have the labour. It's those earning their benefits.

I know I know, surrounded with "oh my god, my kids couldn't be left there". But then thats why the proper people are there being paid, through taxes.

Therefore, those helping out in the creche will fulfill their hours for return of benefits.

As I said, it doesn't have to be majorly complicated.

lynzpower

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I meant that it could be part of the work for benefits scheme.

Have one or two proper childminders employed to run it, and the rest can be done by "work for benefits".

You have the labour. It's those earning their benefits.

I know I know, surrounded with "oh my god, my kids couldn't be left there". But then thats why the proper people are there being paid, through taxes.

Therefore, those helping out in the creche will fulfill their hours for return of benefits.

As I said, it doesn't have to be majorly complicated.

But childcare is an accredited profession, via NNEB.

If you had NNEB- your already working in childcare.

Are you suggesting we can haul some "non-workers" off the dole who have never worked with children before and just let them look after kids? Would you let your newborn be cared for by an unqualified untrained person? Would they have to pass Enhanced CRB or would you not bother with this?

Graham_Devon

lynzpower wrote: »

But childcare is an accredited profession, via NNEB.

If you had NNEB- your already working in childcare.

Are you suggesting we can haul some "non-workers" off the dole who have never worked with children before and just let them look after kids? Would you let your newborn be cared for by an unqualified untrained person? Would they have to pass Enhanced CRB or would you not bother with this?

Which is why you would have a couple of those people there. And then others helping out.

It's not being turned into "newborns". Who ever talked about newborns? It's being made needlessly complicated again.

I worked in a creche type place for work experience, I wasn't in any way qualified. I just got sent there to help out. Help out I did, washing things, cleaning, setting up activities outside, keeping an eye on the kids. The childminders themselves did the child caring duties.

As I said, I knew it would go off on the tangent of "oh, couldn't possibly send my kids there".....but then people use babysitters?

I AM ducking out now. Been in too many of these types of convo's and it always get's so complicated and involved unnecesarily that it just ends up winding up both posters from both ends!!

It really doesn't have to be complicated. Even if it's just a few hours per week doing something. I can list stuff, but that will just end up with a list back of why this is not possible and made all complicated again.

I just see it as a FAR more beneficial service than having people just sat on their bums waiting for their payment.

Generali

lynzpower wrote: »

But childcare is an accredited profession, via NNEB.

If you had NNEB- your already working in childcare.

Are you suggesting we can haul some "non-workers" off the dole who have never worked with children before and just let them look after kids? Would you let your newborn be cared for by an unqualified untrained person? Would they have to pass Enhanced CRB or would you not bother with this?

It's not quite that simple.

Anyone can be employed as a nanny or au pair unless a court has said they can't be employed around children. You don't even need a CRB although clearly it would be sensible to have one.

As a childminder the only qualification you need is a paediatric first aid course. You also need to have you house certified by OFSTED and get a CRB but they aren't qualifications.

To work in a nursery there are several levels of qualification and the amount of responsibility that a person can take relates to their qualifications. An unqualified person isn't allowed to supervise children without a qualified person IIRC however they count in the same way as a qualified person when calculating the ratio of carers:kids.

I got an unqualified person to work for me as an au pair for me on 2 occasions. One is now a human rights lawyer and I suspect a very good one*, the other is my littlest Generalissimo's godmother.







*Funnily enough her name is pronounced 'Law' in English.