[mossdog]

The Boss of Big Issue John Bird has heavily lambasted the welfare system in todays BBCs television news and also the Guardian,where he says lots of welfare claimants are being kept in poverty because of the socially engineered system,where people stop on benefits for years without any form of payback to society for their help! His answer is to make people earn their benefits instead of doing nothing in return for them.There might suddenly be a lot less claimants if people have to work for their support!

[Ben_H]

I've thought this for a while, that if people are on unemployment benifits, then they are obviously fit to work and should do. Could be anything really, comunity gardening, Litter picking, city ambassadors and any different seasonal work thats needed as well. It would give people a sence of purpose and probably would windle out thoses that are just living of hand outs.

There would be teething problems (there is with anything new in govenment) but in the long run, I think it would be a massive boost to a society that is slipping down the drain.

[andyofborg]

Originally Posted by mossdog

There might suddenly be a lot less claimants if people have to work for their support!

why?

how would they live, if they stopped claiming?

what would the claimants do? there are very few things that they could do without starting to force employees out of a job.

[andyofborg]

Originally Posted by Ben_H

I've thought this for a while, that if people are on unemployment benifits, then they are obviously fit to work and should do. Could be anything really, comunity gardening, Litter picking, city ambassadors and any different seasonal work thats needed as well.

but then what's to stop the employed city ambassadors being replaced with, presumably cheaper, unemployed people?

on the other hand, if unemployed people are doing the same work as an employed person why shouldn't they just be employed and paid properly?

[Ben_H]

why?

how would they live, if they stopped claiming?

what would the claimants do? there are very few things that they could do without starting to force employees out of a job.

I think the point being made here is that it would start to find the people that are just playing the system and never have any intention of getting a job even if they can, not the ones who are trying to get one.

but then what's to stop the employed city ambassadors being replaced with, presumably cheaper, unemployed people?

on the other hand, if unemployed people are doing the same work as an employed person why shouldn't they just be employed and paid properly?

At the moment, there is obviously a lot of extra work the council need to do and there funds are tight so can't employ extra bodies to help get the jobs done. The people in the full time payed jobs would have to be protected, I agree 100% with that otherwise it's a pointless thing to do. But if suddenly, the council got an extra 100 / 200 people to help maintain the city centre, improve roads etc, that would massivly improve the ity we live in. Once the economy starts to pick up, then these people whould have relevant work experience to get new paid jobs. I agree, it would need sorting properly so that the current employed people are not done over and that councils etc didn't use it to stop employing extra staff when they are needed as that is needed to take the economy forward.

[Kthebean]

Originally Posted by Ben_H

I've thought this for a while, that if people are on unemployment benifits, then they are obviously fit to work and should do. Could be anything really, comunity gardening, Litter picking, city ambassadors and any different seasonal work thats needed as well. It would give people a sence of purpose and probably would windle out thoses that are just living of hand outs.

There would be teething problems (there is with anything new in govenment) but in the long run, I think it would be a massive boost to a society that is slipping down the drain.

I would love to see this kind of scheme in practice.

I think on the face of it its a brilliant idea but the 'teething problems' are massive. Even managing volunteers takes a lot of time and effort and they want to do the work. I cant even begin to imagine managing a team of depressed or demotivated jobseekers mixed with feckless wonders...

Imagine you head a team of 'jobseekers' that are doing community gardening - litter picking and weeding the hedgerows for example. One of them rings in sick - "I fell over last night and hurt my back". What do you do? "No work no benefits" may be a good idea but a lot of time and effort has to go into making sure that if someone genuinely has a reason for not doing it then their family does not starve.

Say on the other side of the fence - you work all your life in a manufacturing job making car parts, then you are made redundant and your job is shipped to China. You go on the dole but literally cannot find a job for a year - all your former colleagues are looking for work at the same time as you. So you are sent to litterpick. How do you go from litterpicking on the dole to a better job if there are no jobs, and your most recent item on your CV is 'litter picked for no money because I had to'?

Believe me I am not saying its a bad idea - like I say I would love to see something like this in practice. I just think those calling for it need to go beyond the rabble rousing to provide some concrete policy.

[Ben_H]

Kthebean, I hear everything you are saying. I worked as a manger in a call cnetre for 9 years at different levels of management and we had a massive issue with Sickness. We put in place where the number of days and occations of absence was tracked and after so many, the employee lost their right to sick pay for a certan number of months. Our sickness levels were reduced massivily very quickly. Some of the workers you get in door of call centres now, are only there because they have been told to go by the job centre and you face very similar problems with them as you would with people on the dole (lack of willing etc). I would like to add at this point before I get linched, that I also came accross some brilliant people in call centres and I am not for a second taring everyone with the same brush as the people mentioned above. The sickness policy could work in a similar way as if you didn't turn up, they could be docked etc.

Regarding your second point, The scheme could be extended to incorporate a retraining scheme so if an entire industry is removed from the area, as long as people attended college / uni ect they would still get benifits. Also, if people were going for interviews, that would take priority.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, I don't. But with some thought from the people in power at both a local and national level, it could work. I'd quite happly give my time to get such a project off the ground, but until people in power start the ball rolling, there isn't much more we can do.

[R.A.N.D]

well get ready for a very very very very big surge in crime just hope you all feel safe.

[mossdog]

Originally Posted by R.A.N.D

well get ready for a very very very very big surge in crime just hope you all feel safe.

And why do we need to get ready for a V V V Very big surge in crime,is that what Britain has sunk to..........If I can,t get benefits,I'll take up burgling!..........bearing in mind that the vast majority of the "goods extraction community" are probably already on benefits of some sort!

[Funky_Gibbon]

Originally Posted by mossdog

And why do we need to get ready for a V V V Very big surge in crime,is that what Britain has sunk to..........If I can,t get benefits,I'll take up burgling!

It's funny the things people will do to put food in their mouths and keep roofs over their head. Increased poverty = increased crime. It's got nothing to do with Britain. It's human nature.

Heard the Big Issues boss going on about this this morning. It's easy to say that people should work for their benefits but he didn't say what that work would be or where it would come from, nor how the ones who do want a real job are supposed to find one whilst their doing a 40 hour-a-week shift to access benefits they're entitled to, nor how employed people would be affected by a sudden influx of several million people presumable doing similar unskilled work to low-paid workers but for free.

Sounds like a call for the return of workhouses, which as the historian Simon Fowler put it were "largely designed for a pool of able-bodied idlers and shirkers ... However this group hardly existed outside the imagination of a generation of political economists".

No change there.

[mossdog]

Originally Posted by andyofborg

why?

how would they live, if they stopped claiming?

what would the claimants do? there are very few things that they could do without starting to force employees out of a job.

I think the Government have already decided to sort the good ones from the bad ones, and actually contributing some form of effort to earn your benefits sounds like a good idea to me.The system that allows thousands to milk the system plainly cannot go on.Most people in the Britain know at least one dodgy person who is getting away with false claims,and just like drivers with no insurance, it loads the system unnecessarily,and spoils it for rightful claimants.As John bird of Big Issue has said the welfare system has become diseased and a cure needs to be found quickly!

[123456A]

I really approve of working for payment.
I know people who have taken redundancy and then claimed benefits and family allowance and are only £5 per week 'worse off'. They now have family time, no obligations and the taxpayers looks after them.
Administration will be difficult to keep control of unless people are assigned to a particular employee for a set period of time - who claims back from a central pot to pay the individuals.

[Vague_Boy]

Originally Posted by andyofborg

what would the claimants do?

I suspect that thanks to our wonderful modern education system and a general lack of exposure to a disciplined environment, many of school leaving age this year are simply unemployable.

Labour MP (and coalition member) Frank Field agrees with me (well not me specifically, but you know what I mean).

On the one level, we have schools who are producing people who are unemployable. In my own constituency, something like half the young people can’t get minimum school-leaving requirements. We are educating them for a life of unemployment. Secondly, we have tried to rectify that by the New Deal, and many of the young people, some clearly want to work, but others, who have no intention of working, know how to run that system.

LINK

[Elmambo]

There is an environmentaly friendly solution to this problem. All benefit claimants could be made to work a treadmill, driving a small generator connected to the National Grid. This would provide a huge amount of green electricity and contribute to the economy without any effect on existing jobs. A touch of the whip or withdrawal of food would encourage the recalcitrant.

On the other hand, if you believe that the majority of claimants are merely unfortunate, why not fixed-term jobs. We now have a five year fixed-term Parliament, our MP's, Prime Minister, etc., have only a five year tenure. Why not put all employment up-for-grabs after this term and give every one a chance of a job?