Work for benefits

Pennywise

PasturesNew wrote: »

It costs a Council £9k to paint a simple disabled parking spot outside a house .... and another £9k to remove one.

No it doesn't. That's just the crazy way they account for the costs/overheads. It's like the other regularly trotted out comment that it costs thousands to mobilise a fire engine - no it doesn't - unless it was a retained station, it only costs the fuel. Trouble is that they use a costing system whereby all the costs are "absorbed" so the £9k will include a proportion of the the payroll of the admin/management of the department, the office costs, pension, stationery, rent, power, and just about everything else they can think of.

What should be used for decision making is the "marginal cost", i.e. what are the EXTRA costs of painting that disabled parking space or turning out a fire engine - i.e. the difference in total costs between doing it and not doing it.

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Why turn into a right wing tory. They have had 3 years plus to sort him out and haven't and probably won't.

Maybe it's the effect of the Lib Dems but I did think the conservatives would do more and more quickly to deal with the workshy. I was actually worried that they'd be overly harsh - lol.

I do wonder how Americans perceive UK politics. What we might see as a right of centre government must look like socialism by comparison.

grizzly1911

wotsthat wrote: »

Maybe it's the effect of the Lib Dems but I did think the conservatives would do more and more quickly to deal with the workshy. I was actually worried that they'd be overly harsh - lol.

I do wonder how Americans perceive UK politics. What we might see as a right of centre government must look like socialism by comparison.

I am not sure the US is a particularly wonderful political system or economic model to wish to emulate.

zagubov

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I am not sure the US is a particularly wonderful political system or economic model to wish to emulate.

That is a particularly diplomatic and temperate way of delivering an essential truth that deserves to be shouted, painted by skywriters for those on the ground, carved into fields and painted on rooftops for those in flight, delivered in braille and all possible sign languages.

Parrots and all talking birds should be taught to say it before being fit for sale and it should be both the screensaver and the default passphrase for all new computers.;)

markharding557

I want to offer an alternative view of a benefit claimant, one who does not fit the popular stereo type so often seen on that awful Jeremy kyle programme.

This person is a male single parent, mid 40's, non smoker, light drinker.
Children (three) two always attend school, the oldest is a university student.

He attends a local college two days per week undertaking an accounting course (now on the second year).
Quite a lot of home study is necessary.
This course requires registration with the AAT http://www.aat.org.uk/qualifications/level-2-aat-accounting-qualification

This incurs a fee of £120pa or so and requires the purchase of books for study (£100).
This money was borrowed via a budgeting loan which is repaid from benefit payments.

He lives in a council house and has the ambition of buying it.
It is clean, well looked after and is their home but not their house yet!

My question now is this; is this man a benefit scrounging scum bag or some one who is taking a helping hand to get to a better position in life.

In case you are wondering this man is i, i await judgement.:eek:

grizzly1911

markharding557 wrote: »

I want to offer an alternative view of a benefit claimant, one who does not fit the popular stereo type so often seen on that awful Jeremy kyle programme.

This person is a male single parent, mid 40's, non smoker, light drinker.
Children (three) two always attend school, the oldest is a university student.

He attends a local college two days per week undertaking an accounting course (now on the second year).
Quite a lot of home study is necessary.
This course requires registration with the AAT http://www.aat.org.uk/qualifications/level-2-aat-accounting-qualification

This incurs a fee of £120pa or so and requires the purchase of books for study (£100).
This money was borrowed via a budgeting loan which is repaid from benefit payments.

He lives in a council house and has the ambition of buying it.
It is clean, well looked after and is their home but not their house yet!

My question now is this; is this man a benefit scrounging scum bag or some one who is taking a helping hand to get to a better position in life.

In case you are wondering this man is i, i await judgement.:eek:

Good luck to you.

As always in life it is easier to labour the small percentage of "errors" and make a song and dance abut them rather than look at the bigger picture. The vast majority of the unemployed would prefer not to be there.

No different to the issues around hospitals, late trains, ring tops breaking on cans, !!!!less youth etc.

John_Pierpoint

PasturesNew wrote: »

It costs a Council £9k to paint a simple disabled parking spot outside a house .... and another £9k to remove one.

Can you quote a source for this ?

I sold a house with such a marking in front of it, in a street that never saw a warden and everyone parked with two wheels on the narrow pavement, if they wanted to keep their wing mirrors.

The marking became one of the major issues with the buyers. so I called their bluff by offering to buy a club hammer and a cold chisel.

Admittedly the marking was not in good condition, but I think a morning's work would have obliterated it. A hired Kango hammer would have done it in less than 90 minutes and a SDS hammer drill (as found in most tradesmen's tool boxes) would not take much longer.

Now I suppose the job would need a risk analysis review, a notice in the local paper, barriers to keep the public away and protect the worker from forgetting where he was, some sort of power generator because plugging into the householders supply would be out of the question.
perhaps we would need a second van with notices and lights to control the traffic?.
No No this is all getting too much, let us simply hire a firm with one of those road blasting machines used for removing white and yellow lines painted in the wrong place.
That won't cost more than a few thousand, though it probably won't fit down the road and someone still has to prevent parking over the spot for a day or two in advance.

I suppose that is why social housing is so expensive to maintain; the idea that some things are better done by the householder, does not occur to those in the town hall.

John_Pierpoint

Pennywise wrote: »

No it doesn't. That's just the crazy way they account for the costs/overheads. It's like the other regularly trotted out comment that it costs thousands to mobilise a fire engine - no it doesn't - unless it was a retained station, it only costs the fuel. Trouble is that they use a costing system whereby all the costs are "absorbed" so the £9k will include a proportion of the the payroll of the admin/management of the department, the office costs, pension, stationery, rent, power, and just about everything else they can think of.

What should be used for decision making is the "marginal cost", i.e. what are the EXTRA costs of painting that disabled parking space or turning out a fire engine - i.e. the difference in total costs between doing it and not doing it.

At the end of the day all these costs have to be apportioned against the "outputs" of the council (what ever they may be) and presumably the highways department must be costing a fortune to do some fairly simple things.
Like having a business where it costs £5 to issue an invoice for £0.50, because that is what it costs to run the systems for stock control, credit control VAT payments etc etc.

vivatifosi

I've recently commissioned the marking up of parking bays where I live on behalf of res assn. The cost, including materials consisting of paints and templates, and the cost of Labour from the company we commissioned totalled less than £500.

lisyloo

My partner has been out of work for 8 months (and looking hard every day). He has an offer currently and is waiting to start.
He's quite high in his career e.g. managing director/CEO level and there are fewer jobs the higher you get.

He might fall into this category.
What would you rather he does?

A) Would you rather accept that in some cases it might take a little more than 6 months. Have him find a good, well paid job perhaps bringing millions of pounds og GDP into the country and then contribute 40% tax.

Would you rather lose those skills and have him tidy up the park.

I don't agree with the benefits culture either, but having my DH work his butt off trying to get a job, I have a bit more emphathy with those who are trying.
I dislike those who choose a benefits lifestyle as much as everyone else but I don't think it's quite so easy to pick them out. I have no issue with the 2 year timescale, but many of my professional colleagues (and in some cases I'm takling board level) have at times been out of work for periods up to 2 years.

In that case we would probably choose not to get benefits as most of those people only qualify for JSA anyway, so all that would happen is that those who have paid A LOT in all their lives can't get any help at all instead of the little they get at the moment.
It wouldn't be the end of the world if better off people didn't get JSA, but it does grate if you've paid in all your life and then can get NO help whatsoever.