Frank Field article about New Deal in the Times
Submitted by intuition_stream on Fri, 20/02/2009 - 7:31pm
I am not usually fan of Frank Field but for once i agree with him.
How would you improve schemes to help the unemployed?
Frank has concentrated on young people though and forgot to mention older people like myself.
--tony in leicester
Thanks for the link. I found the article interesting, but it didn't seem like he'd actually looked in-depth at what Flexible New Deal means, or what the full implications of some of his recommendations were. Taking them in turn:
Be good to hear what other people think.
i was thinking some kind of government job creation scheme (temporary for a year ? - Tories introduced the community programme - it helped some people including myself) could work with new deal - it could provide some of the jobs. If people are doing useful work they should be paid a wage - benefit is not a wage. If you want the work to be done to a good standard or stop disaffection you need to pay a living wage - its more than benefit probably more than the min wage. We need such a scheme now.
There used to be an element of extra benefit if you worked for longer periods or so much in a given period or year but the tories scrapped it in the 1980's.
Voters have never voted for welfare to work reforms, they are unproven - every country is different. i didnt vote for these and i wouldnt have or will in future!
i dont know enough about this to comment in any depth on Frank Field articles. Frank fields reforms were dropped because they were too controversial at the time - they are probably still the same.
How many pilots have been tried for FND ? The idea is untested - it should be reviewed after a certain period say two years and if its not working then phased out or reformed? it should tested equally on how many it gets back to work not just after 6 months but two years. i am not keen on companies making profits out of such things!
I am against some of these reforms on ideological grounds because they divide the community and dont tackle inequality at its root, these reforms are essentially right wing their main purpose is to save money so government can keep taxes low mainly for political reasons. There is a hidden cost to having so many people on low levels of benefits. If there are a lot of people losing their jobs who have worked for years and years they should get a higher rate benefit because they need more money to live on and it makes sense in a recession. The trouble is the longer you are out of work the more money you need to live on because you have to replace basic items. Welfare cannot work in a recession because there are far more people looking for work than there are jobs? Welfare to work only makes sense when more jobs are being created all the time and unemployment is falling.
It makes sense for the jobcentre to have all vacancies but the government needs to invest in jobcentre plus and provide a better service for employers - the unions are right to fight the job cuts in jobcentre plus - they have proven right in the case of the growing dole queues?
The French government creates jobs for the unemployed, as opposed to 'work for your benefit'. Surely working for your benefit would have to be reduced hours or minimum wage, or wouldn't they be breaking the law?
i am not against being expected to look for work but i might study law so i could challenge someone making me work for my benefits. THis is a step too far - in the direction of a new workhouse regime or worse. I am not sure how doing a months work for your benefit helps anyone except the companies who get free labour to make profits. Normally you only have to do community service to avoid going to prison. Please dont say its not relevant. If enough people objected to doing it it would become unworkable. Use the months work to train people and use the training to help them get jobs. People who are forced to do this without training or pay are not going to produce good work or will nullify any benefits by "mentally switched off misbehaviour". i have just bought some work boots for £5. If they have to make people do physical work they will have to provide them with full cost workboots at least 20 to 25 pounds and proper clothing for safety and weather conditions. Each person will have to be kitted out.The cost of this will add up if a significant number of people do physical work outside.Traditionally manual labour is what schemes like this have done in the past.
AnonymousMe, the question about slave labour has already been raised, and it's safe to say that the government is confident that what it's proposing is entirely legal. 'Being required to do stuff in order to keep receiving money from the government' is not the same as 'being required to do stuff'. The Frank Field article is admirably clear on how a culture of benefits dependency kicks in if you don't give people a prod when they get too comfortable on something that is after all called 'jobseeker's allowance'. The fact that many claimants are financially better off on benefit doesn't help matters either, of course.
Also, I would argue that the French labour market is in a complete state because of overzealous protection of the rights of existing workers, which not only makes it difficult for unemployed people to break in, but also makes employers wary of taking on staff in the first place as they're such a bugger to get rid of if they don't do the job properly. Not to forget that the UK government already funds actual job creation in the form of supported employment factories, each of which loses £1m a year on average and which are being phased out in favour of integrating people into the actual workforce.
i think its ok to give people a prod if there are plenty of jobs they can do but for a while we wont be in that situation. You dont need to prod most people work is a necessity. Last teusday the jobcentre was heaving there was a fire alarm hoax possibly and a lot of people were standing outside on the pavement. I noticed the regular side of the jobcentre not the new deal side had a longish queue. Redundancies at Alliance and Leicester have not occurred yet. i think they are going to be around a 1000 next month but will take a while show. Other banks locally might be shedding staff though not in such large numbers. Some local retailers have gone bust recently.
Can you tell me the average figure or percentage of people doing ND25+ finding work.
Someone writing on cif said the figure could be as low as 20%. People might be better motivated if they thought that their efforts would be rewarded. (Some views of the DWP or those of the minister are based on prejudice and not scientific or rational studies).
ND25+ performance is listed in the traffic light reports on page 2 of the site. Should also be available through the tabulation tool on the DWP site.
A much better article to read is the one by Madeleine Bunting - quite rightly it says the new reforms are an attack on the poor. No matter how good the delivery these reforms are right wing and take us back in the direction of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act not absolutely but relatively. It doesnt matter what the tories say poverty is judged relatively. I know it sounds hysterical but we want to raise the standards of people in countries like Uganda not lower ours to their level.Got it.
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Madeleine Bunting had some good points, but she doesn't really understand the point of the welfare reforms. "It beggars belief that an entire system is going to be built on insisting that people hunt for non-existent jobs." If the entire welfare system was based on the attitude that jobs were non-existent, we'd never get out of the recession. In fact, we'd definitely end up with the long-lasting problems that we still have as a result of the early 90s - 2,620,420 people on Incapacity Benefits (and SDA).
Really long-term unemployment is a nightmare to try and get out of, and support schemes during the recession need to do all they can to try and stop people from falling into this. Bunting doesn't acknowledge this. And the well-trod argument that the welfare reforms were conceived "in a dramatically different era" has NO relevance: all that matters is whether the reforms are correct for now and the future.
I'd like to see a some sort of job sharing as a way of reducing unemployment, at least temporary, and would be a lot fairer for everyone than the present system. For example, someone works for 6 months then signs-on for 6 months - there job be taken by someone else for 6 months.
In an imperfect world, I think this system would have many merits, not least giving as many unemployed people as posssible the chance to do a proper job for six months instead of being marginalised and condemned to long-term unemployment.
DWP are looking pretty closely at ND25+ failings at moment. 20% sounds about right.
Will Hutton wrote a good piece in The Observer a couple of weeks ago about the USA's Works Progress Administration which created work in the thirties depression. He reckoned to do something similar here now would cost about £20bn a year, less than has been spent recapitalising the Bank of Scotland. Sounds good idea to me.
As far as Community Programme goes I think ALP are already talking to DWP on this front, particularly about FND Phase 5, and have been for some time.