Retired people could work for pensions..

dzug1

PaulF81 wrote: »

I would suggest those approaching very old age but with mental and physical faculty would complete these tasks with a fair sight more compassion than some doliete forced to do it as part of a back to work scheme.

Doleites forced as part of a back to work scheme will very likely fail the CRB checks necessary to do such work

Or maybe they'll be swept away as unnecessary bureaucracy

Frogletina

PaulF81 wrote: »

Back to the OP, how would I administer a pensioners to work scheme? I would have a points based system, whereby the level of means testing and taxation on pensions (including private sector) depended on the contribution to your local community. I am not talking about sweeping the streets here. If an individual has the mental faculty to use skills and training they have perfected during a lifetime of work, why not use those skills to benefit the local community? Schemes such as voluntary childcare (increases state tax take through reduced maternity pay and increased income tax), teaching assistance in schools (cutting the state liabilities to ta pay and benefits), assistance and advice to local businesses (non-liable financial advice etc). There are an absolute raft of things that could be done, all which will keep pensioners active and bring communities closer together. I really dont see where the objections to such a scheme to could come from.

If pensioners were obliged to work for their pensions, then surely those in work would just carry on after retirement age and draw a full wage and thereby reducing the amount of jobs available.

It would only be those who would be really poor, old, sick or unable to find work who would have to work in your scheme which is in reality a return to the workhouse.

In fact, why not remove them from their homes (saving both housing benefit and council tax) and give those houses to the young unemployed who will have less jobs to go to now that pensioners have no incentive to retire, and those that have no jobs will be doing all the work in the community. You could build big apartment blocks with dormitories for the elderly, after all, think of the savings there.

In your scheme, if I was a pensioner (which I am not) and one that was currently just receiving the basic pension - could I do less work than one that needed housing benefit and council tax too? Or would I be penalised for either having bought and paid for my home or having enough of a private pension to pay rent?

Would I be exempt if I did childcare voluntarily for my grandchildren. Or would I be told to work in a nursery (thereby putting full paid workers who had been fully trained as nursery nurses out of a job) I could be a teaching assistant, never mind that there are paid ones now, I'm sure they would make way for me to take over their job to earn my pension, saving them taxes (not that they would be paying any income tax now, would they)

CLAPTON

It would involve a massive increase in the state as there would be a need for all those assessments; appeals panels, lawyers, human rights activists etc etc.

So we would be a Pensions Assessment Bureau; I'm sure the top person would command a massive salary and it so happens I might be available for this vital community work....

xylophone

If you want to choose a career and not have one forced upon you, you need to work hard at school, college and uni, not doss around at the back of the class

.

Glad to say I did......I expect that virtually all of today's pensioners who had the chance to go to University also worked hard - and they probably expected that having paid their NI and taxes that they could expect to be able to retire ......

Perhaps the pensioners could volunteer to pick the veg - support our needy farmers! (They could always put the money saved into their pensions....)

At one stage it was possible to teach with a degree but without necessarily having a PGCE - I wouldn't regard someone with an honours degree as unqualified.

Incidentally, the staff at the top public school which I know best are all qualified ....

PaulF81

CLAPTON wrote: »

It would involve a massive increase in the state as there would be a need for all those assessments; appeals panels, lawyers, human rights activists etc etc.

So we would be a Pensions Assessment Bureau; I'm sure the top person would command a massive salary and it so happens I might be available for this vital community work....

No it wouldnt. You would just de regulate before you introduced it and make unemployed all those useless jobsworths mentioned in the first paragraph. Perhaps the state could plant a potato field near them that needs picking as penury for their previous career choice. If you think those people add any value to the UK you need your head feeling. This is something I firmly believe would be supported by the majority of hard working people in the UK anyway.

As for your second paragraph; that role could be reserved for a volunteer (as how most service charities are run btw, with retired very senior officers, with only allowances and costs covered) with a suitable background (Ex major CEO/senior civil servant).

PaulF81

xylophone wrote: »

Perhaps the pensioners could volunteer to pick the veg - support our needy farmers! (They could always put the money saved into their pensions....)

At one stage it was possible to teach with a degree but without necessarily having a PGCE - I wouldn't regard someone with an honours degree as unqualified.

Incidentally, the staff at the top public school which I know best are all qualified ....

Can you answer me this, if all the extra regulation introduced by labour was so good for education, why did we fall on international scales in terms of education performance and employability?

You are confusing TA's with teachers. There is a big difference. Ironically, I dont believe a degree SHOULD be a pre-requisite to teach. There are plenty of vocational careers that actually, a degree education is probably the last thing you want. Real world experience and life coaching I believe are key for any teacher; someone fresh out of an MSc/PhD may be academically bright, but useless in the classroom. Of 26 modules I took, 10 were self-teach at uni because of this reason. Excellent world class researchers, useless teachers.

I wouldnt have pensioners picking veg when there are are plenty of generations of socialist generated sloth before them that can do it.

CLAPTON

PaulF81 wrote: »

No it wouldnt. You would just de regulate before you introduced it and make unemployed all those useless jobsworths mentioned in the first paragraph. Perhaps the state could plant a potato field near them that needs picking as penury for their previous career choice. If you think those people add any value to the UK you need your head feeling. This is something I firmly believe would be supported by the majority of hard working people in the UK anyway.

As for your second paragraph; that role could be reserved for a volunteer (as how most service charities are run btw, with retired very senior officers, with only allowances and costs covered) with a suitable background (Ex major CEO/senior civil servant).

well I'm very disappointed there won't be a massive salary but I'ld probably be willing to do the job for a massive expenses budget instead....

xylophone

service charities are run btw, with retired very senior officers

On very senior officers' pensions and with the CHOICE as to whether or not they do this work....

xylophone

Believe me, I don't confuse TAs with teachers....

dzug1

CLAPTON wrote: »

It would involve a massive increase in the state as there would be a need for all those assessments; appeals panels, lawyers, human rights activists etc etc.

So we would be a Pensions Assessment Bureau; I'm sure the top person would command a massive salary and it so happens I might be available for this vital community work....

But surely in our ideal society that Bureau would be run by G4S or similar, not the state?

Oh sorry I forgot. In our ideal society there won't be a state pension anyway.