US style welfare for the UK: thousands of jobs to go?

[rednblack]

IME hippies were involved in anti poll tax style action. And you think protesting about arms fairs are "hippy shit". Well I suppose all those arms/munitions factories provide jobs for good old BRITISH workers. Roll on the next generation of nuclear weapons, that'll provide lots of jobs. For British workers.

yep, carry on and ignore the real issues you racist plum

 

[In Bloom]

This is all a bit basic, isn't it? Lets start from first principles.

In any well run society people above a certain age and below a higher age are normally expected to work to support themselves and their families. Exceptions are where there aren't enough jobs, and people who can't work. And rich people of course. So we assert a right to work, and we expect working people to organise to make sure conditions at work are optimal. And we try to make sure that there aren't any really rich people.

We institute programes of social protection for people who are excluded from working life, but where there really are jobs and where they actually can work or can be helped into work, we expect them to take the opportunity.

Now tell me - do you accept this as a set of first principles, or not? And if you do, more or less, surely the methods of setting out the social protection are fairly incidental and surely a society has a responsibility to find ways that are more effective than others? There is evidence that local welfare provision can be more flexible and better informed and more effective in achieving good outcomes if those outcomes include getting people into work and self-supporting, and off poverty level benefits.

So what's to protest about?

For a start, forcing people on IB back into work when they're not ready for it. And if you really think that privatising welfare will be beneficial then you're a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

 

[ViolentPanda]

This is all a bit basic, isn't it? Lets start from first principles.

In any well run society people above a certain age and below a higher age are normally expected to work to support themselves and their families. Exceptions are where there aren't enough jobs, and people who can't work.

All of which is fair enough.

And rich people of course.

Except, of course, that there are numerous avenues available to the rich to increase their wealth at the expense of the exchequer (and therefore the rest of us).

So we assert a right to work, and we expect working people to organise to make sure conditions at work are optimal. And we try to make sure that there aren't any really rich people.

And then the government (at the behest of capital) legislates to supress or remove the right to organise, and to make sure there is little impediment in law against exploitative work practices that allow some people to become "really rich".

We institute programes of social protection for people who are excluded from working life, but where there really are jobs and where they actually can work or can be helped into work, we expect them to take the opportunity.

Which begs the question "what is a 'local job'"? If I'm expected to travel 30 or 40 miles e/w to my employment at an unreasonable expense to myself or to accept that the state has a right to demand that I take a job that leaves me no better off than on benefits and costs me 20 hours a week in travelling time then what is the quid pro quo? Where is the incentive?
What you're saying is that the state has an absolute right to expect me to fall in line with whichever diktat it decides to publish in a given week. What I say to you is that if I am indeed party to a "social contract" with the state, then I have certain expectations of the state; that they treat me with respect; that they acknowledge my right of dissent; that they address my particular circumstances with reference to employment and don't try to shoe-horn me into a Mcjob to give their policy a statistical gloss it does not warrant, and most of all that they accept that except under certain legal circumstances thay hold no right of compulsion over me.

Now tell me - do you accept this as a set of first principles, or not?

Personally, no. Your "set of principles" appear to have more to do with what the state can reasonably expect from the people that what the people can reasonably expect from the state.

And if you do, more or less, surely the methods of setting out the social protection are fairly incidental.

Incidental?
I have to ask: Are you Frank bloody Field?

and surely a society has a responsibility to find ways that are more effective than others?

I've no problem with society finding better, more effective ways of deploying welfare, dependent on what you actually mean by "society", which I see as "the people", and you appear to see as "interest groups claiming to represent the people".

There is evidence that local welfare provision can be more flexible and better informed and more effective in achieving good outcomes if those outcomes include getting people into work and self-supporting, and off poverty level benefits.

There is? Please, if yo could be so kind, post your sources.

So what's to protest about?

Does so assinine a point actually need answering?

 

[Fullyplumped]

I'm not Frank Field, I'm Fullyplumped, you Violent Panda you.

People making use of welfare services have both rights and responsibilities, and members of the society (or indeed The People) that resources welfare have the right to expect that people using welfare co-operate by taking work that is on offer, even if that work is not all they would aspire to, and developing new skills where they can to get better, more lucrative and more appealing work. We should expect not to be poor and have a responsibility to make efforts to protect ourselves from poverty, by learning and developing skills. The Government is following a strategy that recognises these principles and it's a better one than parking millions on poverty benefits till they die. Being on benefits, when you don't have to be, is impoverishing. An active approach to helping and encouraging working age people out of welfare and into work is better and will enable people who can take advantage of it to have longer and better and richer lives.

And since our country is hugely diverse in terms of economic opportunities and industrial structures, and indeed in political and philosophical value bases, surely it makes sense for welfare systems to be localised. I live in Central Scotland, with lots of working age people in the West on incapacity for work benefits. Fifty miles away, in the East, there is full employment and demand for highly skilled workers. The local economies are different and the welfare/activation responses should be different and both West and East Scotland responses should be hugely different to those in the Highlands and Islands. There are lots of examples of local responses having a positive impact - look at the papers at recent ESPAnet conferences, for example, for serious discussion of the pros and cons in other parts of Europe.

Sure, organising at work is difficult and restrictive laws get in the way and it requires effort and risk - but there isn't any way round that. Do you think some kind of social services are an alternative to trade union activity?

Now, Reallyoldhippy - I'm shocked that anyone would want to campaign against the closure of a "care home". These places are segregation camps for older people and disabled people, and the fewer of these bloody smelly places the better until they all go. Even the best of them are the modern equivalent of Workhouses, with the smell of institutional urine. Being disabled is no reason for having to give up all your income and all your savings.

Celebrate the closure of care homes and campaign for dynamic social care in our own homes. Campaign for equal treatment for disabled people of all ages.
Campaign for acceptance that disability needs to be addressed by removing barriers to full and equal participation in social, economic and working life. That means, among other things, treating impairment and illness where possible but also creating opportunities and challenging discrimination and barriers, including the barriers that keep people on poverty benefits and out of jobs. Illness is not the same as disability.

 

[treelover]

God, what a Tory/Blairite Third Wayer! where/how have you developed these ideas? Fully plumped?, did you start your political trajectory as many of these Blairite crazies did on the far left, aka Alan Milburn (maybe you are Alan Milburn).you certainly sound like someone who is part of the establishment, (Demos policy wonk, maybe?) Anyway, welfare is a right, not fucking charity, it was fought for over many many decades, possibly by your grandfather and mine. In fact, it was won because the ruling class, (usually don't use terms like that) were scared of the power of organised labour leading upto and after the Russian Revolution and although the left in the UK has forgotten it matters, the recent soundings fron the Unions and the planned welfare conference such as the one in Sheffield shows things may be changing

You think you sound so radical, indeed caring, with your warmed up Thatcherism, well for those on benefit the plans of Blunkett and Hodge are a step to far, it's time to draw a line in the sand. Much of the 'new thinking' has come from effete policy wonks who have never been on welfare in their lives, indeed never known hardship. They simply don't know how hard it is struggling day to day: many of these people simply can't work and the Govt targets of 800'000 peolple to be removed from Incapacity Beenfit wil bite deep into the many people who simply cannot carry out a days work.

Even more salient: where are these jobs for disabled people going to come from? unemployment is rising now at a considerable rate, its hard finding jobs in some parts of the UK, even if you are able bodied. Imo,its more about a puritan work ethic and a Victorian way of looking at and disciplining the 'undeserving poor':the Christian Socialists like Blair's acolytes, (bizarrely often ex-employees of the Child Poverty Action Group!) see those who are inactive as some form of 'sinners' to be redeemed, well they don't need redeeming, they need decent benefits and any 'help' they get(what an Orwellian way that word has been transformed), should be non coercive and with no strings attached. We should fight for that, not US styler welfare, we can see where that leads,

two words,

New Orleans

People making use of welfare services have both rights and responsibilities, and members of the society (or indeed The People) that resources welfare have the right to expect that people using welfare co-operate by taking work that is on offer, even if that work is not all they would aspire to, and developing new skills where they can to get better, more lucrative and more appealing work. We should expect not to be poor and have a responsibility to make efforts to protect ourselves from poverty, by learning and developing skills. The Government is following a strategy that recognises these principles and it's a better one than parking millions on poverty benefits till they die. Being on benefits, when you don't have to be, is impoverishing. An active approach to helping and encouraging working age people out of welfare and into work is better and will enable people who can take advantage of it to have longer and better and richer lives.

 

[treelover]

Yes it fucking well is, are you serious? ask anyone who has long term M.E whether they are not disabled, that they are fully active and able to work, they will tell you to shove it

Well, we have a real doozy here folks: a fully formed Blairite by the sound of it.
I won't even say welcome to the board, as i usually do....

Illness is not the same as disability.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes it fucking well is, are you serious? ask anyone who has long term M.E whether they are not disabled, that they are fully active and able to work, they will tell you to shove it

Well, we have a real doozy here folks: a fully formed Blairite by the sound of it.
I won't even say welcome to the board, as i usually do....

The point "illness is not the same as disability" is accurate IF you take it in the context of what "illness" is usually perceived as, i.e. either minor or fatal. What such an ignorant statement doesn't take into account is the nature of chronic and/or long-term illness, which is, by it's very nature, disabling.

I have the misfortune to have moderately severe ME myself, I also have an unconnected neurological/cognitive problem and osteo-arthritis, all of which are "illnesses" which cause me various disabilities.

That's what people with mouths full of policy such as "fullyplumped" don't bear in mind. That each "disabled person" is a unique fusion of different problems and opportunities, and need to be addressed as such, not battered over the head with a "one size fits no-one" piece of ministerial diktat that may make the government look like it is playing hardball with "the scroungers", but doesn't do a thing for the long-term sick and disabled.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm not Frank Field, I'm Fullyplumped, you Violent Panda you.

You must have both read the same issue of "Left-realist policymaker monthly" then.

People making use of welfare services have both rights and responsibilities, and members of the society (or indeed The People) that resources welfare have the right to expect that people using welfare co-operate by taking work that is on offer, even if that work is not all they would aspire to, and developing new skills where they can to get better, more lucrative and more appealing work.

I'll break my reply down to answer your individual points, if you don't mind.

1) "rights and responsibilities": I don't disagree. My problem is that the rights and responsibilities are becoming increasingly atomised. The rights accrue to the state and the responsibilities to the claimant, a fact made very obvious by even a cursory overview of benefits legislation over the last 20 years.
2) "the right to expect that people using welfare co-operate by taking work that is on offer": No, you don't have that right. You may think that morally a person should feel compelled by a sense of worth to take enployment even if no financial benefit accrues to them as a result, but that's your morality speaking. Employment has to be worth a claimant's while, otherwise there is no point to it except to fill a boss's pocket through use of cheap labour.
3) "developing new skills": In what, ICT? Oh my aching sides. We've bugger-all of an industrial sector, re-skilling is mostly about training people to work in the (shrinking and job-exporting) service/communications sector, the construction industry is more reliant now that it was even 10 years ago on sub-contracting (and thus finding the cheapest rather than the best persons for the job).

We should expect not to be poor and have a responsibility to make efforts to protect ourselves from poverty, by learning and developing skills.

So you're in effect saying that responsibility should be devolved onto the individual, even when that individual has participated in the "pooled risk" insurance racket that is NI contributions, and that the state has the right to abrogate their part in any social contract they may have with the citizenry, because it is incumbent on the individual to "protect themselves"?

The Government is following a strategy that recognises these principles and it's a better one than parking millions on poverty benefits till they die.

The state should be well aware of it's complicity in bringing about the situation where so many people are on "poverty benefits". Government no longer (if it ever did) governs for the people, it governs for the corporates.

Being on benefits, when you don't have to be, is impoverishing. An active approach to helping and encouraging working age people out of welfare and into work is better and will enable people who can take advantage of it to have longer and better and richer lives.

If you believe that more than a tiny percentage of claimants are on benefits when they don't have to be your both not very attentive to the NAO and ONS's annual fraud figures and distastefully tabloidesque in your mode of thought.

Sure, organising at work is difficult and restrictive laws get in the way and it requires effort and risk - but there isn't any way round that.

There's a very simple way around it; restore some of the rights that the Thatcher governments removed from the trades unions.

Illness is not the same as disability.

Technically you're correct. In terms of knowing what you're talking about I'd say you're 100% wrong.

 

[reallyoldhippy]

Now, Reallyoldhippy - I'm shocked that anyone would want to campaign against the closure of a "care home". These places are segregation camps for older people and disabled people, and the fewer of these bloody smelly places the better until they all go. Even the best of them are the modern equivalent of Workhouses, with the smell of institutional urine. Being disabled is no reason for having to give up all your income and all your savings.....................

Are you a professional tosser, or just practicing? And if these people have no family? Or their family is in cramped, poor housing as it is? Or if they have no savings or private pension? I'm all in favour of people being looked after in their own or family homes. But in many cases in the real world, that just isn't an option.

You'd have thought the residents wanted to be moved out. But where to? Another home miles away from the remaining friends was the only option. You'd probably prefer to see them on the street. Picked up from the gutter when they die and disposed of at the local tip, as befits such a drain on society.

 

[tobyjug]

I'm shocked that anyone would want to campaign against the closure of a "care home". These places are segregation camps for older people and disabled people, and the fewer of these bloody smelly places the better until they all go. Even the best of them are the modern equivalent of Workhouses, with the smell of institutional urine. Being disabled is no reason for having to give up all your income and all your savings.

Could you come to the Lizard and repeat that face to face with my wife. (She is a nurse working permanent night shift in a nursing home).
I am quite sure given your total condemnation of her dedication to her patients she would rip your head off and urinate in the hole.

 

[Fullyplumped]

Could you come to the Lizard and repeat that face to face with my wife. (She is a nurse working permanent night shift in a nursing home). I am quite sure given your total condemnation of her dedication to her patients she would rip your head off and urinate in the hole.

Tobyjug - I didn't condemn your wife's dedication to her patients and I hope she doesn't send incontinent lizards after me. I do think that residential care homes should all be closed eventually and replaced by proper care in one's own home. That's to do with the regime, not the people who work in them. Nursing care homes are a little bit different, right enough, but I take a dim view of them as well up to a point.

Did you really read my commments as an attack on nurses, or are you just looking for a fight (for Mrs Tobyjug?)

 

[Fullyplumped]

Are you a professional tosser, or just practicing?

Professional.

And if these people have no family? Or their family is in cramped, poor housing as it is? Or if they have no savings or private pension? I'm all in favour of people being looked after in their own or family homes. But in many cases in the real world, that just isn't an option.

Why should not having a family nearby see someone condemned to retire from the community into a care home? And if one's home is horrible, that's a different problem. God knows, most people dread having to give it all up and go into "a home". In the real world, continuing to live in one's own home is and should be the best option. If you are in an area where that option isn't available, get stuck in.

You'd have thought the residents wanted to be moved out. But where to? Another home miles away from the remaining friends was the only option. You'd probably prefer to see them on the street. Picked up from the gutter when they die and disposed of at the local tip, as befits such a drain on society.

What I would prefer to see is something I've negotiated often in my career - work with housing associations to sort out decent housing, sort out packages of care and social support, sort out advocacy to make sure the service user is in control, sort out work, training, continuing education, social life - and get the institutions closed down! Google "Centres for Inclusive Living" and "Margaret Blackwood Housing Association" to see what is possible.

I can accept that for people who have got used to them, it's not fair to kick them out - but I never want to have to live in one - do you? Can you really imagine living your hippy lifestyle in one of them?

 

[ska invita]

-For the record, how is US welfare different from UK?

(also re: disability allowance - how many people do you know who are scamming this one? I know three... I guess it takes one to know one!)

 

[Top Dog]

-For the record, how is US welfare different from UK?

Qualitatively very similar i'd say. Both share the same ideological character. Main difference would seem to be merely one of degree and the US model being at a more advanced stage.

However changes in culture are much harder to define and there remains a deep rooted attachment to the principal of a 'welfare state' in the uk unlike the states. And this is where the bigger battle is taking place: in france, germany and in fact across the whole of europe... Social democracy seeking to adapt itself uneasily to the (now not so neo) neo-liberal realities where the preservation of social welfare sits uneasily next to the opening up of markets in every sector

 

[tobyjug]

-For the record, how is US welfare different from UK?

(also re: disability allowance - how many people do you know who are scamming this one? I know three... I guess it takes one to know one!)

Define disability allowance please as I get VERY pissed off with people who state it is being fiddled on a wide scale.
In the case of Incapacity Benefit it is damn near impossible to get and the assumption by government agencies is one is a fiddling scrounging bastard.
(The attitude is can crawl five yards can work down coal mine).
If you are convinced you know three people who are fiddling it it is your civic duty to report it.
However be advised due to large number of totally malicious arseholes the DWP will, want a shed load of detailed information, before they will waste time with an investigation.
This is due to the fact the government spent £22 million trying to find people fiddling Incapacity Benefit and only found one prosecutable case.
They now have to admit people fiddling IB are near to none existant.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Define disability allowance please as I get VERY pissed off with people who state it is being fiddled on a wide scale.
In the case of Incapacity Benefit it is damn near impossible to get and the assumption by government agencies is one is a fiddling scrounging bastard.
(The attitude is can crawl five yards can work down coal mine).
If you are convinced you know three people who are fiddling it it is your civic duty to report it.
However be advised due to large number of totally malicious arseholes the DWP will, want a shed load of detailed information, before they will waste time with an investigation.
This is due to the fact the government spent £22 million trying to find people fiddling Incapacity Benefit and only found one prosecutable case.
They now have to admit people fiddling IB are near to none existant.

I've got my DLA medical this afternoon. Not looking forward to it, but I have a passing acquaintance with the dr who is doing it, so I hopefully will get my claim renewed.
Mind you, it's so bloody arbitrary I've done my usual thing of running down my financial commitments before the renewal was due *just in case* I have to go to appeal.

All I can say to niksativa's claim is he must know some fucking good undiscovered actors, or they must have bribed the examining dr, because out of 5 medicals I've had just for DLA, none of them have been done by drs that anyone but a superb actor could get past if there were nothing wrong with them.

 

[ska invita]

what can i say! I know some scroungers who have capitalised on small aches and pains and got years of benefits out of them - of course of couse of course im not saying that everyone who claims is scamming, but from what I see there are people who take advantage of this benefit quite happily, and I wouldnt be surprised if social policy research hasnt found the same thing and so things are being tightened up.

Will they go too far? I've no idea, all I am alluding to is that I know personally of people who have capitalised on minor back problems and faked mental health grounds and got a lot of extra benefit out of the system. But as I say, I cant help the company I keep.

edited to add: good luck VP, I hope it goes well for you.

edited again to add: persoanlly I think the government trying to find extra cash in benefit cuts is not worth it - we have low unemployment, and its harder and harder to stay on JSA indefinitely. Plus supposedly a billion of benefits goes unclaimed every year. If there is a hole in the accounts we all know why its there...

 

[ska invita]

That each "disabled person" is a unique fusion of different problems and opportunities, and need to be addressed as such, not battered over the head with a "one size fits no-one" piece of ministerial diktat that may make the government look like it is playing hardball with "the scroungers", but doesn't do a thing for the long-term sick and disabled.

What exactly is the new one size fits all diktat? What have they done this time?

 

[ViolentPanda]

what can i say! I know some scroungers who have capitalised on small aches and pains and got years of benefits out of them - of course of couse of course im not saying that everyone who claims is scamming, but from what I see there are people who take advantage of this benefit quite happily, and I wouldnt be surprised if social policy research hasnt found the same thing and so things are being tightened up.

Latest research I've bothered to read through thoroughly was 2001, and for DLA IIRC they extrapolated (from a sample of about 1000 I believe) a fraud rate of between 1.8 and 2.5%. The rate for Incapacity benefit was about 1.5% higher

Will they go too far? I've no idea, all I am alluding to is that I know personally of people who have capitalised on minor back problems and faked mental health grounds and got a lot of extra benefit out of the system. But as I say, I cant help the company I keep.

Fair enough, we all know (or are related to ) dodgy folk.
As for going too far, recent history on the subject is pretty much a history of going too far and then having to pull back from very bad policy decisions (the Benefits Integrity Project springs to mind as an exemplar of the kind of policy).

edited to add: good luck VP, I hope it goes well for you.

Well, she's just gone, was very pleasant, remembered my problems from the last visit, did an examination and said she'd be going in to bat for me, so hopefully I'll get a favourable decision on my renewal.

edited again to add: persoanlly I think the government trying to find extra cash in benefit cuts is not worth it - we have low unemployment, and its harder and harder to stay on JSA indefinitely. Plus supposedly a billion of benefits goes unclaimed every year. If there is a hole in the accounts we all know why its there...

It's actually around £2.5-3.5 billion a year, and it all gets folded straight back into treasury reserves.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What exactly is the new one size fits all diktat? What have they done this time?

The aim is to consolidate incapacity benefits claimants whose medical problems pass a certain threshold of severity with claimants who have qualified for the higher rates of Disability Living Allowance mobility and care components, give these claimants a new benefit, and place everyone else, regardless of their health problems in a regime which is predicated on putting them in employment.

The problem with this "one size fits no-one" solution is that long-term sickness and disability aren't amenable to conforming to government policy, they're usually only amenable to palliative chemical or physio-therapy.

 

[tobyjug]

Did you really read my commments as an attack on nurses,

Absolutely. Your comments indicated a lack of basic nursing care on the part of nursing home staff.

 

[tobyjug]

what can i say! I know some scroungers who have capitalised on small aches and pains and got years of benefits out of them -

Total bollocks, perhaps if I come around your house and give you a few aches and pains you might just find out getting benefit for just a few aches and pains for more than a few weeks is a fucking impossibility.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

...Now, Reallyoldhippy - I'm shocked that anyone would want to campaign against the closure of a "care home". These places are segregation camps for older people and disabled people, and the fewer of these bloody smelly places the better until they all go. Even the best of them are the modern equivalent of Workhouses, with the smell of institutional urine. Being disabled is no reason for having to give up all your income and all your savings.

Celebrate the closure of care homes and campaign for dynamic social care in our own homes. Campaign for equal treatment for disabled people of all ages.

The problem, fullyplumped, is that the choice for elderly people is not between some "modern equivalent of a workhouse" and a domestic utopia, where service is provided to elderly and disabled people in their homes by an army of social workers, meals on wheels, home helps, district nurses, all of whom are available 24/7, at the press of a button.

The reality of 'care in the community' is far from the idealised version of utopia that you think it is, in fact it's often non-existent, or substandard, or inadequate, or only available after very long waiting times, after jumping through hoops of depressing, demoralising and undignified procedures.

If care in the community actually existed in society, as opposed to just in the minds of members of government and bureaucrats and managers, then you might have just reason to be outraged at the continued existence of care homes.

Unless and until such time as 'care in the community' provides care, provides home helps, provides support, provides services in sufficient quantities, of sufficient levels of quality, and in sufficient variety as the person needs to be enabled to live independently, then, alas, for some people, a care home is preferable to the neglect, lack of care and compassion and lack of dignity that would otherwise be their fate under 'care in the community'.

In the meantime, there has to be a choice, there have to be facilities such as care homes that are staffed 24/7, where staff are on call.

...Campaign for acceptance that disability needs to be addressed by removing barriers to full and equal participation in social, economic and working life. That means, among other things, treating impairment and illness where possible but also creating opportunities and challenging discrimination and barriers, including the barriers that keep people on poverty benefits and out of jobs. Illness is not the same as disability.

I agree with you, fullyplumped, this is an issue that needs to be addressed. It's shocking that in this day and age discrimination and prejudice is still so prevalent.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Absolutely. Your comments indicated a lack of basic nursing care on the part of nursing home staff.

Sorry to be pedantic here, but there's a difference between care homes and nursing homes.

Years ago, I worked as a receptionist at an old folks home and there were two distinct sections/levels of service. For the more mobile and healthy of residents, it was simply a residential care home. The staff who looked after the needs of these residents were care workers. There was a nursing home aspect to the place as well, and those residents who were less mobile had medical needs, were looked after both by care staff (who performed duties like an auxiliary might in a hospital) and also by nursing staff, qualified nurses.

It shouldn't be assumed that care staff at a care home have nursing qualifications, nor that there is any problem with this. I think it depends upon the type of registration, some homes will be care homes, some care/nursing homes, and the number of beds allocated to each section will come under regulations about care:nursing staffing levels depending on whether a bed is care/nursing.

Like I said, I was only a receptionist, so I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but that was my understanding of the situation.

 

[likesfish]

there was definite goverment policy in the 80s to move people onto Incapacity Benefit and off the jobless figures and in some places mostly up North post industrial (wastelands ) its become almost traditional started with 50 plus ex heavy industrial workers likes theres a job for them anyway.
it is quite easy to get depression back ache knew quite a few drinkers smack addicts were on it not like they were employable anyway.
DLA I've filled in some serious iffy claims that have been accepted and heard of people with imho much more genuine case turned down
I plan to have a job by the end of next month been out of work for nearly two years main reason for not working £700 a month rent and another £100 odd council tax so thats £800 a month before other expenses. Job vcentre saying you could be £30 a week better off mmm £30 for a 40 hour week some motivation
moving into a council house rent a month £200 so that £300 with council tax
so bring home a £1000 thats £100 a week better off not including tax credits etc
now thats motivating

 

[tobyjug]

Sorry to be pedantic here, but there's a difference between care homes and nursing homes.

Actually there isn't as much difference as you might think, Locally it appears to be some sort of collusion between social services and nursing home owners who wish to downgrade to care homes so they do not need to employ nursing staff. (That is as much as I am going to say on an open forum)
It is however a scandal.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

what can i say! I know some scroungers who have capitalised on small aches and pains and got years of benefits out of them - of course of couse of course im not saying that everyone who claims is scamming, but from what I see there are people who take advantage of this benefit quite happily, and I wouldnt be surprised if social policy research hasnt found the same thing and so things are being tightened up.

Will they go too far? I've no idea, all I am alluding to is that I know personally of people who have capitalised on minor back problems and faked mental health grounds and got a lot of extra benefit out of the system. But as I say, I cant help the company I keep...

The thing is, a lot of people don't really admit the extent of their physical and mental health disabilities, they'll try to make light of them, laugh them off, joke about them, because for starters, no one likes a whinger, try succumbing to depression and see your mates scarper and not want to know you anymore.

And as for physical chronic illnesses and disabilities, well, there's so much prejudice, people don't like to admit the 'd' word. It's fairly okay for person to say, oh, I'm not well, I've got this illness or that disease or that condition, people think of it as something separate to the person, but when a person admits to the 'd' word, to being disabled, a really strange thing happens, people tend not to see 'the disabled' as individuals, as individuals, they become defined by their disability, and lots of people don't want to be defined by their disability, they think there's more to themselves than whatever the disability is.

And don't forget, in a society that values and judges people on their 'economic worth' their capacity to earn, to support themselves, to make profits for corporations, whereby being disabled renders a person worthless, then can you not imagine how some people might make light of their medical condition, their incapacity to work, shrugging it off claiming benefits as a bit of wheeze, because to admit otherwise is to write themselves off, permanently, as a valued member of society. There is a lot of discrimination and prejudice about disability and lots of people won't admit to a hidden disability, such as epilepsy, depression, ME, MS, and so on, because they know from experience that people's attitudes towards them, and their perceptions of them as individuals change.

And what's other option? If a person doesn't laugh at the situation, the Kafkaeque nature of the system, if a person don't try to rise above it, mentally, then they're in danger of succumbing to it, the idea that they are pitiful, that they should be grateful.

So what would you do: laugh in the face of adversity or be totally demeaned, stripped of your dignity, humiliated by it?

And you forget, while you're mentioning people who scam the system, (and I don't doubt that there must be some), there are others who would love to go back to work, people with the kind of fairly minor (in the scheme of things), but still incredibly debilitating conditions, who can't go back to work because the NHS system is so bad, that they have to wait months or even years for operations, for treatment, for physical and psychological therapies.

 

[treelover]

Excellent post Anno, someone on another board who is themselves disabled has put up some stuff and wrote to the Sunday Express referring to the 'numbers of malingerers on IB' without exploring why such people are 'malingering'(what a loaded and old fashioned word)

 

[treelover]

btw, strange request! could i use some of it to reply back to the other list, etc....



oh ,and welcome to the boards....

 

[Fullyplumped]

Please, if yo could be so kind, post your sources.

ViolentPanda, sorry not to have replied more quickly.

Look at two things in particular, if you're still interested.

Catalyst have just produced this, which I think is relevant -

http://www.catalystforum.org.uk/pubs/paper32a.html

And I think you would find this interesting - a study from 2000 in West Central Scotland by the Scottish Council Foundation. The UK Govt ignored this and similar stuff when it came out, preferring to go with JobCentre Plus but it looks like they're catching up...

http://www.scottishcouncilfoundation.org/pubs_more.php?p=2

(free pdf download).

Look - I just think that there are millions of people stuck on poverty benefits who could have a better life helped out of that swamp. If it's possible in declining Clydeside communities like the one described in the Scottish Council Foundation study then it's got to be possible in That London. The present arrangements are hardly doing people any favours are they?

Anyway - best of luck with your DLA.