Ema

gailey_2

Our city has quite a few acadmeys where they get money for each gcse they pass!

I worked 2part time jobs whilst doing a levels.

I think money should be given but in other ways not just cash so school food or luncheon vouchers, book tokens and bus pass that allows students to travel all time even on weekends be good idea as gives them mobility especially if they live rural areas like I did growing up.

StevieJ

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I don't know where you get your ideas from but a family with 2 children would be receiving large sums in CB, CTC, HB/LHA and CTB, regardless of whether they'd worked or not.

I must say I was bemused by that one

BigAunty

I always regarded EMA as a voting bribe, like tax credits. Typically, the parent would either be working and/or in receipt of tax credits and child benefit so quite why the responsibility for paying for their childs books, clothes and travel was taken away from them, I don't know.

The best route out of poverty should be through employment. I know full employment is impossible but I think that the govt was wrong to try and cure poverty through passively giving money to the parent and their child.

I'd have like to have seen the previous governments tackle poverty by reducing taxes for low paid employment to bump up a household's income and take them far above the living standards and disposable income of non-working households.

gailey_2

BigAunty wrote: »

I always regarded EMA as a voting bribe, like tax credits. Typically, the parent would either be working and/or in receipt of tax credits and child benefit so quite why the responsibility for paying for their childs books, clothes and travel was taken away from them, I don't know.

The best route out of poverty should be through employment. I know full employment is impossible but I think that the govt was wrong to try and cure poverty through passively giving money to the parent and their child.

I'd have like to have seen the previous governments tackle poverty by reducing taxes for low paid employment to bump up a household's income and take them far above the living standards and disposable income of non-working households.[/QUOTE

Couldent agree more labour loved chucking money at things which dident always get results.

some simple fixes is

raise the rate of income tax so we dont have to subsidise low pay with top up credits!

Pay childcare for low earners or single parents so they can work.

ensure schools offering breckfast club,afterschool club, holiday clubs.

maybe pay for free school dinners for parents who work!

we have to give people incentives that raise aspiration.

so means better schools
more appreticeships and vocational courses at college rather than pushing them all to uni.

SingleSue

IronWolf wrote: »

As someone who received EMA, I think it’s just a waste of money and could be much better targeted. I’m from a very poor family, and got the full £30 of EMA over 2 years, which amounted to over £2k in total. I never spent it, I had a part time job for a few hours a week, all I had to pay for was the bus, or I could walk 40 minutes instead which I usually did. I never bought a book, even in Uni. I would take a packed lunch to school which cost a fraction of the price of buying it every day.

How on earth did you get away with not buying books? We have a very scary list of books come from the school that we are expected to purchase each term! If he doesn't purchase them, he gets into trouble (library books are no good as the teachers expect notes to be made in the margins too)

SingleSue

BigAunty wrote: »

I always regarded EMA as a voting bribe, like tax credits. Typically, the parent would either be working and/or in receipt of tax credits and child benefit so quite why the responsibility for paying for their childs books, clothes and travel was taken away from them, I don't know.

If it was a bribe, it didn't work on me.....I didn't vote for them.

RobertoMoir

Generali wrote: »

If you are going to pay kids to go to school, crazy IMO, then payments should be linked to 2 things:

-Attendance

EMA was supposed to have been very closely linked to attendance - not just the day either but each lesson - which could explain a student still getting EMA even if they're not in college first thing, if no lessons are scheduled until later in the day.

I work in a college myself and while we do have some students that genuinely need help, the whole concept of EMA has always amazed me too... but it is linked to attendance very strictly (not achievement, and there's a reason for that), so isn't quite the free ride you may have imagined.

Jennifer_Jane

RobertoMoir wrote: »

EMA was supposed to have been very closely linked to attendance - not just the day either but each lesson - which could explain a student still getting EMA even if they're not in college first thing, if no lessons are scheduled until later in the day.

I work in a college myself and while we do have some students that genuinely need help, the whole concept of EMA has always amazed me too... but it is linked to attendance very strictly (not achievement, and there's a reason for that), so isn't quite the free ride you may have imagined.

I understood that because the colleges know who is in need, then that's why the EMA was being stopped and money being given to the College to give to appropriate students. Is that how it works?

Also, isn't there a statutory obligation by councils to transport students? I've only ever heard of this from the Minister on 'Parliament Live', and I'm unsure if any councils are, in fact, doing anything about this, or if parents know about it.

drc

Isn't it just a way to keep them off the unemployment figures, plus cheaper than paying them jobseekers allowance. Kills two birds with one stone.

BigAunty

SingleSue wrote: »

If it was a bribe, it didn't work on me.....I didn't vote for them.

Well someone did as they kept in government for numerous successive terms!

I know that broadly speaking Labour is regarded as the party for the poor and Conservatives for the rich.

So labour does very well in poorer and thus more benefit dependent areas. Strong correlation there between voting and benefit receipt.

I think tax credits, EMA, new baby grants, child trust grants, winter fuel allowance, etc, were labour's way of buying votes as they massively increased recipients of state benefits.

I know that labour were sincere about targetting poverty but this should have been done via taxation, cheap child care provision, house building and job creation, not letting households trouser money just for having kids or having their kids attend college.

Not that the Tories are any better - the way they moved poor people out of westminster under dame porter.