TUC response to the Freud Review

The TUC has just published their response to the Freud Review, "Reducing Poverty, Increasing Support".

Their response makes two main points:

"Benefit claimants, including disabled people and lone parents, need extra support to help them to get jobs, not the threat of penalties".

"There is no need for privatisation or contracting out of services currently provided by Jobcentre Plus. We pay particular attention to some of the problems that may follow from contracting out to faith organisations".

Pensioner poverty

Up to 1.6 million eligible pensioners are still not in receipt of pension credit, therefore £2.1billion is left unclaimed. Take-up of Housing and Council Tax benefits are also declining. And I am sure Gordon Brown is laughing all the way to No. 10 thinking of the savings and inviting his private equity pals around for drinkies.

One of the many reasons for the lack of take-up is probably due to the bureaucratic, unhelpful and complex nature of the benefits system. There’s also a lack of information, support and encouragement. Therefore this becomes a massive obstacle and disincentive for pensioners to apply or indeed anyone else who is entitled to benefits. And what is worse pension credit and many other benefits are means tested.

With the current attacks on welfare there has been the stoking of the flames perpetuated by New Labour with negative stereotypes of claimants ("feckless poor") and this will have a severe impact as it will scare, distress and ultimately deter people from applying for benefits they have every right to claim.

New Labour tackling poverty? Who are they trying to kid...

New Labour and lie detectors

The TUC has just published their response (Lies, damn lies and lie detectors) to the John Hutton's BIG idea of lie detectors to root out those "benefit fraudsters".

As the TUC argue: "Using voice-stress analysis software when people apply for benefits will intimidate some who are not fraudulent into withdrawing their claims, and we can confidently predict that innocent people will account for a majority of those whose claims are delayed while they provide extra evidence to support their claims".

It is a terrible and shocking injustice that the same expensive technology cannot be used on lying New Labour warmongers. I mean, Blair shouldn't despair he should get his results in a matter of ..........45 minutes.

PCS - Freud Review and Welfare Reform Seminar

I attended this meeting on the Freud Review and Welfare Reform organised by the PCS. There was discussion about Job Centre Plus being contracted out. Charities will be promoting their own self interest and concerns were raised about faith-based organisations especially highlighting issues around equal opportunities and opting out.

The organisation TUDA (Trade Union Disability Alliance) rightly described the Freud Review as ignorant, ill informed, retrograde and the importance of the government to ask disabled people what their own needs are and not some banker called David Freud (who oversaw the privatisation of Railtrack... don't you just have faith in the man??!!) I am sure the world of banking could do with a review orchestrated by welfare rights activists....

New Labour is fixated with penalising claimants but the same can't be said with employers for discriminating against disabled people. Even organising a case under the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) is incredibly hard and access to legal aid is difficult.

Also the whole political strategy of Freud joins up neo-liberalism, marketisation and compulsion. What kind of service will claimants receive from private companies? Contractors will be paid by results and the incentive will to pack as many into the job market. Nothing about the quality of the employment offered.

Mark Serwotka spoke about the far reaching consequences the Freud Review and the overall attacks on welfare. There has been no public debate or discussion about privatisation public services. Instead of improving service delivery New Labour will be cutting 40,000 jobs from the DWP. It is all about opening up the market.

One of New Labour's newest principles are diversifying the chain of supply and outsourcing even if that means de-skilling, pushing down terms and conditions, and redundancies. The public sector, with resources and financial commitment are better at delivering services than the private sector.

Nowhere in the Freud Review is there a mention of benefits and tax credits or any discussion about minimum income standards. With greater income inequality the rich are getting richer the poor getting even more stigmatised.

The trade association Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) has been campaigning for Britain to adopt the Australian system of contracting its employment services. And their shareholders do very nicely out of this carve up. The conclusions drawn from today's meeting show that the Freud Review will create more discrimination, fear, misery, poverty, job insecurity and stigmatisation.

The biggest problem (and I had a few) I had with the meeting was that opposition to the Review was muted and the most vociferous criticisms came from disability rights activists. It is all well and good to continue to have these "discussions" but surely we need to back this up with activism?

Even in the blurb from the PCS they use the word "stakeholder" which kinda alarmed me. And why the hell was Terry Rooney MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Parliamentary Select Committee chairing this meeting as he thinks the Freud Review is a good financial step in the right direction of getting people back into the workplace....

I was pleased to see John McDonnell at the meeting as well.

Job Centre Plus: privatisation put on back burner...

In a leaked letter to the Guardian, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Timms, told Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, John Hutton, that -

'... it might be helpful to clarify the position reached on the funding of the proposals set out in David Freud's report.

‘As the chancellor made clear, it is not possible to develop or pilot a new funding model in the immediate future.'

Hutton welcomed the Freud review as setting out a 'compelling framework for the next stage of welfare reform', Budget 2007 report gave no commitment as to when any greater private and voluntary sector involvement in the provision of employment support may begin.

And Hutton and Murphy were rather cock-a-hoop at the prospect of the voluntary and private sector providers carving up the spoils of Job Centre Plus. And proposed incentives included providers eligible for financial rewards for helping claimants to find and stay in work.

Has the proposal of part-privatisation of Job Centre Plus bitten the dust?
We shall wait and see...

NB: Bad news......New guidance has been issued by the DWP regarding lone parents and work-focused interviews and will come into effect from the 30th April 2007. The main points being:

to be interviewed every six months; and
in certain areas with an only or youngest child aged 11 to 13 to be interviewed quarterly.

John Hutton's latest idea....

Just how far will that schmuck John Hutton and his posse at the DWP stoop? Well, gutter level it seems as the latest offering from John Hutton is that claimants will be subject to a lie detector test in a bid to crack down on fraud. And it gets even better because the people who will be in charge of this is ..... Crapita. Yes, the company committed to "tranforming" your services. Transforming them into what, that's the question?

But back to seeking out liars and cheaters screwing the welfare system. Hutton explains:

"This technology-based process aims to tackle these fraudsters while speeding up claims and improving customer service for the honest majority.
Our investigators are successfully using sophisticated 21st century techniques to stop criminals. The introduction of this cutting-edge technology will be another weapon in the battle against benefit fraud." Ah yes, the "honest majority"....

The Voice Risk Analysis technology picks up in the changes in the caller's voice "which can be signs of stress when telling lies",.. The person's "normal" voice is measured against these changes. Benefit advisers will be trained in using "sophisticated 21st century techniques to stop criminals". It will be tested in north London first (Harrow Council for Housing and Council Tax benefits) before being rolled out to the rest of country including Job Centre Plus. No mention of monitoring and who will monitor.

Words fail me in conveying how obscene this latest proposal from Hutton is. What also springs to mind is.... tax evasion but hey, New Labour doesn't want to upset the likes of Rupert Murdoch so instead it is easier to be gunning for the powerless and treating them all as potential criminals. It is estimated that between £700m-£900m is lost because of benefit fraud but between £97bn-£150bn is lost to tax evasion. While £7bn in benefits are unclaimed. And we know where New Labour's priorities lie.

And this method is utter fantasy as how can you really conclude that someone is "lying"as opposed to "not lying". It is subjective. This latest proposal will cause more upset, misery and distress. It is hard enough contacting a government agency but even harder when you know they are analysing your truthfulness. Yes, truthfulness and New Labour... never the twain shall meet.

And I will be interested in what the trade unions such as the PCS and Unison will make of this.....

Uninsured patient billed more than $12,000 for broken rib

Here is a very unexceptional occurence in the US health system, which takes the breath away.

Friday, March 30, 2007
San Francisco General Hospital is the only trauma center ...David Lazarus

There are 47 million people in this country without health insurance. Richmond resident Joey Palmer is one of them.He learned how costly this can be after fracturing a rib in a relatively minor motorcycle accident and subsequently being hit with a bill for more than $12,000 from San Francisco General Hospital.

"There's no way I could pay something like that," Palmer, 32, told me. "I'm not a bum, but I'm not making a lot of money right now. How is anyone supposed to pay a bill like that?"

Iman Nazeeri-Simmons, director of administrative operations at San Francisco General, said she sympathizes with Palmer's situation."It's not us," she said. "It's the whole system, and the system is broken. We need to look closely at making changes and at how we can deliver care in a rational way."

Palmer's story illustrates the broader problem of runaway health care costs in the United States and a system that leaves millions of Americans to fend for themselves.It also underlines the importance of universal coverage that guarantees affordable health care to anyone, anywhere -- a goal that's become a central issue in California and in the current presidential campaign.

"We are the only developed country that doesn't cover all its people," said Stan Dorn, a senior research associate at the nonpartisan Urban Institute. "We also spend a lot more than the rest of the developed world."

The United States spent an average of $6,102 per person on health care in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Canada spent $3,165 per person, France $3,159, Australia $3,120 and Britain a mere $2,508. At the same time, life expectancy in the United States was lower than in each of these other countries and infant mortality was higher. But those are just statistics. When you talk about America's health care crisis, you're really talking about people. And Palmer's experience speaks volumes. He was riding his motorcycle through San Francisco's Presidio on Sept. 19. It was late afternoon. Palmer was heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge and then home to Richmond. Suddenly his brakes locked, sending the motorcycle into a slide. Palmer slammed into a guardrail. He was pretty shaken up, but he could tell he wasn't badly hurt. A passer-by saw the accident and called for help. An ambulance arrived within minutes. Palmer said he told the paramedics that his ribs felt banged up, possibly broken, but that he was basically OK. He said he preferred to be treated in Contra Costa County, where he lives and would probably qualify for reduced hospital rates because of his income level.

Palmer is a woodworker who specializes in the decorative touches on wealthy people's yachts. He said he made only about $7,500 last year, getting by primarily with the assistance of relatives. Palmer said the paramedics were concerned that he may have sustained internal injuries and insisted that he be treated immediately at a hospital. So he was driven by ambulance to San Francisco General, the only trauma center in the city.

Palmer got lucky here. The ambulance was from the Presidio Fire Department, which is run by the federal government and doesn't charge for ambulance service. Had the trip been made by a private ambulance company, it likely would have cost Palmer between $700 and $1,000. On the other hand, what Palmer didn't know is that as soon as the paramedics radioed ahead to say they were bringing in an accident victim, San Francisco General, as per the hospital's procedures, issued a trauma alert to its staff.

Basically, that means a page was sent to doctors and anesthesiologists on call at the time. That page alone cost Palmer $4,659, and he hadn't even set foot yet inside the hospital. The actual hospital experience was, to put it mildly, a nightmare. After blood was drawn for a variety of tests (the cheapest of which cost $44 and the priciest $107), some X-rays were taken ($423).

Then, Palmer said, he was left in a room ($2,070) with a junkie "who was having a real bad trip." He asked to be moved elsewhere but was told no other rooms were available. So Palmer ended up on a gurney in the hallway. And he waited there for five hours.Palmer's bill indicates that he was twice given Vicodin ($22) to ease his pain during this interval, but he insists he took no medication.

"I finally saw someone and asked if I could check myself out," he said. "The guy said they were still waiting for the results of my CT scans. I said that I hadn't had any CT scans. It turns out they forgot to put me on the list." So Palmer was put on the list for CT scans. And he waited another hour.At last the CT scans were taken ($3,334) and then another round of X-rays because, Palmer said, the first batch apparently hadn't been done correctly."

Finally a doctor came to me -- it's now almost 2 in the morning -- and said, yes, I had a fractured rib and some bruised muscles," Palmer recalled. "That was that. End of conversation." Shortly afterward, he said, a clerical staffer approached with discharge papers for Palmer to sign." She asked how I intended to pay for everything," Palmer said. "I told her I didn't have any insurance. She looked at me and then asked if there was anyone I could sue."Several weeks later, he received a bill for $11,082 in hospital charges and a separate bill for $922 in doctors' fees.

Palmer's hospital visit was expensive and time consuming, but it wasn't unique. Many people could cite similar (and similarly costly) experiences in receiving "emergency" medical care at U.S. facilities. "We view health care as a chance to make as much money as you can," said Dorn at the Urban Institute. "The goal of health care should be improving people's health."

San Francisco General's Nazeeri-Simmons was unable to comment on Palmer's lengthy hospital stay because she didn't have access to his medical records. But with Palmer's permission, she was able to examine his billing file. "These charges are comparable to the entire health care market," Nazeeri-Simmons said. "They aren't out of line with what other hospitals are charging. They're actually lower."Not always. Trauma activation charges, for example, typically range from about $2,000 at some Bay Area hospitals to $7,000. At Marin General Hospital, the charge can run as high as $12,636.Nazeeri-Simmons said a sliding scale is offered for low-income San Francisco residents. But Palmer, as a resident of Contra Costa County, wasn't eligible for the program. "If you were uninsured and making less than $10,000, you would pay nothing," Nazeeri-Simmons said. "But that's only if you live in the City and County of San Francisco."After receiving his bill, Palmer complained to the hospital about how much he was being charged. Nazeeri-Simmons acknowledged that a second look was given to the bill at Palmer's request "and we decided to eliminate the trauma activation charge." That reduced the amount due by $4,659. But Palmer still owes more than $7,000 for an eight-hour hospital visit that involved, by his estimate, only about 15 minutes of actual care."It's unfortunate that he's in the situation he's in," Nazeeri-Simmons said. "But what is an individual hospital to do? Are we supposed to eat the costs?"

She said a government-run program similar to systems in place in all other developed democracies would almost certainly keep costs in check while ensuring that everyone has access to treatment (without being impoverished in the process). "Universal coverage would mean that a Joey Palmer doesn't get left out in the cold just because he was in the wrong county," Nazeeri-Simmons said.

For his part, Palmer said he'll try to pay off his hospital bill as best he can. And then, if he can swing it, he'll leave the country. He's thinking seriously about moving to France. "If you get sick over there," Palmer mused, "you can go to any hospital and it won't cost a fortune." He said that with a tone of quiet disbelief.

TUC Social Policy Forum: Welfare Reform Bill

I posted this on Union Futures but think it is useful for this blog as well.

“Can work, won’t work” (John Hutton)

The anger was palpable at today’s TUC Social Policy Forum regarding the dreaded Welfare Reform Bill. The delegates were a mix of trade unionists, welfare rights advisers and disability activists. The morning kicked off with a summary of the Welfare Reform Bill by a low-level civil servant from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Personally I found this a major problem as one of the unholy trinity of Brown/Hutton/Murphy should have been answerable not some junior civil servant. I wonder if the TUC did try getting a minister…. If not, why not? What struck me about the talk by the DWP representative, other than defending the indefensible, was the language.

Everything is about “customers” and “stakeholders”. It is expected that all existing “customers” in receipt of Incapacity Benefit will be migrated onto ESA (Employment and Support Allowance) by 2008. She reiterated that there will be proper safeguards and that nobody will lose their money. Reassuring? Don’t think so!

The next speaker was from Disability Benefits Consortium discussed the problems of the Welfare Reform Bill. I have to say as an activist in the mental health user movement it kinda disappoints me seeing the organisations represented by the Consortium as there aren’t grassroots activist based campaigns involved. Speakers on the panel and from the floor spoke of the need to hear the claimant’s voice yet organisations which claim to represent the very people have no activists at the forefront of the campaigns (my experience is with MIND).

Sue from the Consortium spoke of conditionality and sanctions where ESA claimants will be compelled to engage in work-focussed interviews and other activities under threat of deductions of up to 25% of their benefit. Personal Capacity Assessment (PCA) will be tightened up so it will be harder to prove you are unfit for work. Who will monitor the effectiveness of the changes to the PCA?

The Consortium argued for an independent organisation to carry out the work. New Labour said no but the Lords said yes. Medical assessments are contracted out to a private company called Atos Origin who are frankly useless at assessing people. They have lost the contract to…… Capita. None of these private companies are “fit for purpose”!

A claimant will have 5 days to give “good cause” why they cannot attend these activities and if they don’t their benefit will be cut by around 25%. The personal advisers based at Job Centre Plus don’t like this as it is their job to build up trust and this will be compromised when telling a claimant their money is being cut. From the DWP’s own research has shown that Job Centre Plus staff have very little understanding people with mental health problems and people with learning difficulties.

The other aspect of the Bill is the issue of employers’ attitudes. Onus of conditionality and threat of sanctions is on the claimant i.e. the powerless yet the same isn’t applied to employers.

1. 18% of employers say would exclude job applications from people claiming Incapacity benefit due to mental distress.

2. 10% would exclude people claiming IB because of physical health difficulties.

3. 90% of employers’ say it would be impossible or difficult to employ a visually impaired person.

4. 60% of employers’ discriminate against dependency issues such as people with a criminal record, mental health issues and incapacity.

So..who the hell is gonna do the employing?

New Labour speaks about partnerships with employers’ yet they won’t be penalised or sanctions applied to them for discriminating against disabled people. It should be about tightening up the Disability Discrimination Act, improving working practices and better flexibility for people not increased discrimination, stigma and fear. I know from personal experiences how hard it is to get a job with a “mental health history” that hangs around your neck like an albatross.

One PCS member spoke about how the DWP has sacked a number of people who have been off work sick. Another Unison member spoke about supporting people who have sacked because of sickness and how it is so hard to find another job and especially if the sickness if stress-related.

The Welfare Reform Bill is not anchored in reality. Emphasis is placed on the claimant’s “rights and responsibilities” but employers’ get let off the hook. The civil servant from the DWP said if people are being discriminated by employers’ then they could have a case under the DDA. BUT as someone rightly pointed out, how is this gonna happen with the tightening up of legal aid under the Carter proposals?

Claimants will be caught between a rock and a hard place. In the afternoon there was a brief discussion by the PCS about contracting out Job Centre Plus under the Freud Review and the ongoing butchery of the civil service by Gordon Brown. There will be closures of Job Centre Plus offices and there will be 11 regional super contracts going begging. Jim Murphy spoke recently to Faith groups about involving them in running welfare provision. The Salvation Army may lead a bid…!!

The “Third Sector” hasn’t the capacity to run welfare though the private sector does so it will be the continuation of marketising public services. Who will these organisations be accountable to? Their shareholders who demand maximised profits? It was argued that these private companies will engage in “parking and creaming”, which means they will “park” people they consider hard to get into work and “creaming” off those will they consider easy to get into a job. Hardly treating people equally or responding to the needs of the claimants, is it?

It was also argued that the language to describe claimants has worsened. Such as “feckless poor living the good life screwing the welfare state”! Yes, those people who live on £57.45 a week… absolute fortune! And we will see a division between the “deserving” and “undeserving poor”.

And public perception of the unemployed will be only worsened with negative stereotypes perpetuated by the likes of New Labour.

What is to be done?

These proposals came out of the meeting… more abstract than concrete and activism was kinda muted.

The TUC are consulting with other unions and unemployed centres to come up with a paper to take on Freud.

Maybe… a coalition led by the PCS alongside disability activists, welfare rights advisers and others from the Labour movement (with the backing of the TUC) to campaign against the Bill/Freud Review.

Also with strike action by the PCS it is integral to show our solidarity with them. One of the suggestions for something to do was to put resolutions to TUC conference and other union conferences on poverty and welfare reform.

There are other things we can do which are not just “Molotav cocktail Kalashnikov wielding proposals” (though occupying your local Job Centre Plus once it is privatised wouldn’t be a bad idea!) My own thoughts are that the above proposals are good but what about lobbying MPs, trying to push for an EDM and so on. It is a divide and rule tactic deployed by New Labour as it will be ordinary civil servants who will be expected to carry out the legislation against claimants and they too will be shafted by the privatisation of the services as well. Therefore working together and co-ordination is crucial.

The Welfare Reform Bill/Freud Review is not just an attack on claimants but on all of us as it will be the start of the slippery ideological slope where terms and conditions and labour costs will be driven down. It is a throwback to the past. The market will rule and profits will be made on the backs of misery. I wouldn't be surprised if Brown is paving the way for Workfare.

The 3rd reading of the Welfare Reform Bill is supposed to be happening tomorrow.

NB: The PCS have produced a paper called “Third Sector Provision of Employment-Related Services”

The TUC have produced a report on the Freud Review

References:

1. and 2. The Labour Market Outlook (May 2006) Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

3. Beyond Stereotypes: Blind and partially sighted people and work, RNIB 2004

4. Quoted from Disability Benefits Consortium, Sue Christoforou (MIND Policy Officer)

Welfare not Workfare

Who are the the biggest group of parasites bearing down on the British economy like a plague of locusts? Private equity investors? No. Overpaid business consultants ripping off government departments? No. For hardcore Bliar-ite John Hutton of the Department of Work and Pensions it is ordinary people facing illness and disability that stops them from either being able to work or who face discrimination because of their health that are bleeding us all dry. So there’s a change then, New Labour blaming the powerless for the economies woes.

Since the decline of mass unemployment since the mid-nineties (that is decline of: not end of) the benefits system and the miseries imposed on those who have to rely on it have slipped of the radar of the Left. With the Welfare Reform Bill though some of the most powerless in society will face even greater problems getting the money they need to live on while they are unable to work.

This bill is currently in the Lords and is on course for the royal assent sometime just after Easter. With so many other super reactionary bits of law being created at the moment not many people have picked up on what this bill will mean for ordinary people who cannot get a job because of the disabilities that they face.

In brief the parts of the bill concerned with benefits for those who cannot work due to ill health introduce a system where there are sanctions for people who do not satisfy the Department of Work and Pensions that they are taking steps to make themselves marketable to employers. The sanctions will be reductions in the amount of benefit that people get each week. New Labour wants to punish people for (1) being ill or having disabilities (2) for being out of work because of this! Mr Bumble the beadle’s spirit is truly alive and well and will remain so in the Dickensian system that people will face ( that might be you dear reader if that driver who comes at you a bit fast gets a call on his mobile at the wrong moment!).

For instance a person facing serious depression will be expected to attend Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to get them back to work in a crappy job forced on them by the local jobcentre. If the person is judged not to be co-operating with the Jobcentre they face having their benefits taken away; leaving them in destitution. CBT is a good example of the problems that the new benefits regime will face. Firstly it is a controversial form of therapy that slips into telling people to simply pull their socks up. To the extent that it is effective there is already a shortage of CBT qualified therapists so that it is difficult for a GP to find one for a patient who actually wants one. Where will the Jobcentre find the qualified therapists to foist on people who neither want or need CBT?

Part of the New Labour answer to this will be the private sector of course. The plan is to get the new benefits regime to be run by private companies who will have the power to apply the sanctions and will have an incentive to do so as they will be able to receive a slice of the savings that the Government will make by having people’s benefits cut.

All this will be on top of it being more difficult to convince the Department of Work and Pensions that you are not working because of ill health. The “Personal Capability Assessment”: the scoring system that is currently used to decide if someone is entitled to get benefit for being unfit for work is being made harder. This system of assessment already makes life a misery for a lot of people, many of whom win appeals against decisions that they are fit for work as the decision making process (like the decision making process throughout most of the benefit system) is riddled with prejudice and slapdash work by the Jobcentre.

The bill also brings in changes to the way Housing Benefit is administered and assessed. It is being “simplified” by basing entitlement to Housing Benefit on what local authorities, heavily directed by central government, think people should have available to spend on rent. This is instead of the current system which is based on the actual rent people must pay their landlord. The effect is likely to be to force council tenants and housing association tenants to leave their homes in much the same way that the current “reasonable rent” rules force tenants of private landlords to do so at the moment. The bill is therefore also part of the general attack on social housing and in particular on council housing.

What should socialists be doing?

The bill will become law now very soon. There are a number of things that can be done.

Firstly campaigning with the various local and national disability groups needs to be done. This may involve work around solidarity with individuals who are victimised by the new benefits regime.

Secondly support for civil servants facing job cuts. The Department of Work and Pensions has borne the brunt of the cuts in civil service jobs. Civil service workers who are themselves under threat are likely to toe the line in putting others under the cosh. This will set up a nightmare scene for us, a wet dream for New Labour of civil servants (the lowly type in Jobcentres, not well paid mandarins looking for to good pensions and cosy billets in private companies) being set against benefit claimants in a divide and rule tactic.

It is still important to get struggles up around the welfare benefit system for these reasons and also because New labour and any future Tory/coalition government is likely to take the path of putting most benefit claimants onto workfare schemes where you will be assigned a private company for whom you will work for in order to be paid benefits. This extremely exploitative system is already up and running in the USA. There needs to be a strong campaign around to stop it arriving here.


A longer version of this will appear in next month's Labour Briefing

Marketising misery....

“The recommendations are designed to reduce the number of the most socially disadvantaged people in the country at minimal effective cost and risk to the state”. (David Freud – ‘Reducing Dependency, Increasing Opportunity: options for the future of welfare to work’)

Once upon a time in the near future….a very possible scenario.

Ms X lost her benefit under Section 17 (Disqualification) of the Welfare Reform Act. She needed help in fighting this decision so she visited her local advice centre where she was turned away because of cut-backs. So alas, Ms X, falls through the cracks and instead of landing on a supportive safety net she falls onto hard concrete.

When the Bill goes through Parliament (possibly Spring) and also the Carter proposals accepted then this story could become a reality.

It is all under the pretence of “rights and responsibilities” and creating a “citizen based” society which will be rid of the “dependency culture” that the unholy trio of Jim Murphy, John Hutton and Gordon Brown loathe so much. But does that help Ms X? Nope....

Gee whizz, Gordon Brown, just what kind of hard faced even more class ridden society do you want to create? A society which is being sold off and asset stripped maybe…..

The Freud review was published today and strip it down to the basics includes attacks on lone parents being forced back into the workplace, greater input by private companies in providing benefits, proposals to streamline and simplify benefits.

Benefits have not risen in line with inflation and when New Labour came in power in 1997 they followed the lead of the Tories. Benefits will continue to fall in real terms. Sickness rates are down by 64,000, to its lowest over a decade. So why does the government see fit to attack the poor with this draconian and vicious Bill?

Well, it is the continuation of the marketisation of public services driven by a neo-liberal ideology (prison service, welfare benefits, legal aid and so on....) In the latest Legal Action (sub only unfortunately) there is a fascinating and informative piece by Dexter Whitfield on the marketisation of legal services (but it can be extended to the whole of the public sector).

He explains the 5 methods of Marketising services that include:

• Commodification of services
• Commercialising of labour - changes in terms and conditions etc.
• Privatisation of assets,
• Changing of language i.e. service users = consumers
• Business interests becoming embedded in the public sector.
  

With the changes to welfare and the Carter Review (introduction of fixed fees and competitive tendering) we are seeing ongoing marketisation and “Tescoisation” of advice with the myth of “consumer choice”. Advice is already shrinking before our very eyes and the Carter proposals will only make things much much worse. Legal aid is a cornerstone of an equitable society as everyone has a chance of justice but with these changes it will be justice for anyone who can afford it.

“It took many years to create the legal aid system we have today. It will take only a matter of months to destroy it”.

The people who will feel the brunt of these attacks will be the poor and they will be devastating. Even writing this I am extremely angry as I have experienced the minefield of the welfare benefit system in the past as someone who has been through the mental health system and also experienced advice from various agencies. Without the support of these agencies I would have been, to put it bluntly, screwed.

Where will people be able turn to when the vile Welfare Reform Bill becomes law? Who will represent you and advocate on your behalf when your benefit is snatched away? The Bill will scare and distress many vulnerable people with the increased “conditionality” requirements. Where people will have to jump through hoops to get meagre benefits and where pressure will put on people to go back into the job market. No mention of tightening up the Disability Discrimination Act or making the job market more flexible for people or making sure there is free universal childcare available.

Oh I forget, there’s an abdication of “rights and responsibilities” from New Labour. The onus is always on the powerless.

Gordon Brown will accelerate marketisation and privatisation of public services once he is leader. And why have gutless TU leaders only shown lukewarm opposition to this Bill or the current trend in privatisation? Brown promised them the world if they keep schtum? Stupid fools. He wants to turn the clock back and snatch away NI based benefits and make it all means tested (probably including pensions).

Is Brown thinking welfare state? No, he is thinking Workfare: the US system that forces people into taking the worst jobs going while giving them benefit levels of income instead of proper salaries.

Campaigns fighting against the Welfare Reform Bill include:

SWAN

CAWRB

Campaign against the Carter Review and the attacks on legal aid:

Access to Justice. There is a week of action planned in May 2007.

Culture of dependency: the big nasty lie

The latest phrase to rear its ugly head again in the lexicography of New Labour is “culture of dependency”. This particular popular but pernicious phrase has been used by the likes of American right-winger Charles Murray, Labour MP Frank Field and now recently, head honcho at right-wing think- tank Civitas, David Green

It boils down to the fact that the so-called feckless unemployed are bleeding the welfare state dry and this is breeding some kind of dependency. It has got that Victorian whiff about it with images of “wastrels” being carted off to the Work House are conjured up. At the end of the day it is all about “thrift”, “hard work” “responsibility” and “self-reliance”.

The theory does have a kind of dishonest genius about it though. Everyone in society will be dependent on something or another. A rentier capitalist will be dependent on dividends from the stock market, a buy-to-let landlord will be dependent on there being a chronic and severe housing shortage, an NHS worker will be dependent on there being a political consensus that there should be health care available to all. Thus a charge of dependency culture can be made against anyone you like or perhaps rather anyone you don’t like. Right wing morality of course is aimed at the less powerful in society so it is hard to imagine the various kinds of rentiers being singled out for this kind of scorn.

Reading Green’s report it is glaringly apparent he hasn’t looked at the fine print when he asserts that one in three households in Britain are dependent on state benefits for at least half its income. What he does not explain is that majority of these households on benefits are pensioners and people on very low pay or are lone parents. But Green doesn't give a damn who they are.

Instead he resists showing any understanding for people who are living on the poverty line and that welfare “provision treats people as perpetual children incapable of providing for themselves”.

Many of the people “dependent” on the state for benefits are pensioners who have spent their working lives paying National Insurance…if they are dependent on anything it is their own hard work! Most of the others will be lone parents or will be people that bosses will not employ due to discriminatory attitudes towards people with disabilities. Nearly all of these people have lives that are a daily struggle: they could tell the average right-wing think-tanker a lot about facing huge obstacles just to get through the day.

Green’s conclusion states: “The idea of belonging is central to any viable society. Unfortunately, it has been manipulated by collectivists to deceive many into accepting ‘command and control’ in public services”.

This language of people being either infantilised or enslaved entities precisely because of the welfare state finds resonance in Frank Field’s attack on welfare reform (he happens to think New Labour isn’t being strict enough on these reforms and incidentally, is backing David Miliband for leader of the LP….!!)

“The benefit rules wickedly make serfs of claimants. It is time the Government set the serfs free”.

The common thread throughout these arguments is that obviously people are reliant on the welfare state and need to be liberated from this experience. For your average right-winger this means more poverty.

Murray and Field come from two different ideological frameworks but connect on the issue of “culture of dependency”.

Murray’s latest argument is to scrap the welfare state in America and replace it with "the Plan" for want of a catchier label--makes a $21,000 annual grant to all American citizens who are not incarcerated, beginning at age 21, of which $3,000 a year must be used for health care.” (In our hands: a plan to replace the Welfare State)

John Hills, LSE professor in his recent well publicised report looked at the social impact of housing and the government’s £13b invested in it.

This report voiced similar concerns although expressed in different language. Social housing is seen as a “trap” (it stops you achieving the state of grace of being an owner-occupier). The tenor of the report is what effect does social housing have on ordinary peoples’ behaviour. This is the underlying concern of the cultural dependency theorists.

The assumptions are that ordinary people are only of value if they are making themselves available for the labour market. They get a pat on the head for being owner-occupiers of their homes, as this makes them kinda like mini-capitalists.This is not taken too far of course as most of the them are, or plan to become in the future, dependent on some kind of pension arrangement.

NB: Proposals for sanctions regarding Housing Benefit claimants who have been evicted for "anti-social behaviour" and fail to co-operate with the "efforts of local authorities to rehabilitate them" were originally put forward by...... Frank Field in a private members' bill in 2002. He failed. Unfortunately these proposals are back on the agenda......

New Labour: war on the poor

The unholy trinity of Gordon Brown, Jim Murphy and John Hutton have been lately making their positions known on welfare reform aka getting skivers off the dole and getting feckless youth back into education.

First up is John Hutton who wants to see changes on lone parents’ benefits in them getting back into the workforce. At the moment single parents can claim Income Support until their youngest child turns 16 years. Hutton wants to reduce it to 12 years.

"If we are to eradicate child poverty, then I believe we will also need to go further in challenging existing assumptions about who - and at what point - someone should be in work."

Hutton sites Sweden which has around 80% of lone parents back at work as opposed to over 56% in the UK. Hutton fails to mention that money has been invested in the childcare system in Sweden.

As Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) argues, lone parents need good supportive and flexible working conditions (certainly the pay gap is amplified for women workers who return to the workplace) and the government should invest in high quality free child care and not harass and bully lone parents into working.

Many European countries spend 3 or 4 times more than the UK on child care provision. In Sweden the early system is an almost universal public service and in Finland every child has the right to a childcare from birth. While in the UK childcare is fragmented and beset with uncoordinated initiatives.

“The typical cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two is £142 a week in England, that's over £7300 a year; a rise of 27 per cent in five years – outstripping inflation by nearly 20 percent”.

Next on the agenda are people claiming incapacity benefit who refuse to attend back-to-work schemes could get their benefits cut.

“If one million incapacity benefit claimants return to work, the country would move closer to Labour's ambition of an 80% employment rate, Mr Hutton said as he unveiled the Welfare Reform Green Paper”.

But it not on the claimants’ terms it is on the government’s terms and this bullying will cause no end of distress to people with disabilities. The government is determined to attack people who experience discrimination and oppression in this society but have no plans to tighten up anti-discrimination laws and support people entering employment as opposed to forcing them against their will.

And the attacks keep coming thick and fast as Gordon Brown is threatening to take benefits from young people who refuse to take up education or training opportunities. “He wanted to ensure all aged 16 to 18 were in some form of education, as part of a drive to improve the UK's skills”.
Brown wants to double the apprenticeships but where from and what kind? Statistics indicate 267,000 of those aged 16 and 17 are not in education or training. And no attempt by New Labour in trying to understand why this is happening instead there will be further attacks. No mention of good quality training and day release, for example, where young people can learn a real trade and their options open to learn other skills.

New Labour won’t put in the money but they are happy to create misery. Why blame these young people when really it exposes the unequal educational system?

Last but certainly not least, is Jim Murphy (DWP minister) who is proposing to make it harder to prove someone is unfit for work. But don’t despair Jim’s got a blog dedicated to welfare reforms and tackling child poverty but unfortunately it is moderated though it aims to take a “cross section of views”…. Yeah right!

This souless government is hellbent on attacking some of the most powerless in this society and it has that strong Dickensian stench about it. When will we get the return of the Work Houses? A modern version of the Poor Law or is that the Welfare Reform Bill? “Cap in hand” charity dished out from religious organisations and finally the total dismantling of the welfare state. New Labour is deepening its vicious Dickensian character.