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[b]Tony May wrote:[/b]
[quote][b]andrew wrote:[/b]
[quote][b]Tony May wrote:[/b]
[quote]So, moaning aside for a moment, what is the right way to reform the benefits system, to ensure fairness and encourage people to get back into work as soon as possible?&#8232;&#8232; Well, based on my personal experience of unemployment, here are at least a few suggestions..&#8232;&#8232;

1) SIMPLIFY&#8232;&#8232;

At the moment the benefits system is such a myriad of form filling and a minefield to understand there are people claiming benefits they should not be and plenty NOT claiming benefits they should be and need. Everyone needs to be treated in law as an INDIVIDUAL and benefits should be worked out thus. &#8232;No matter if your wife earns 35,000 a year or you live with someone that is a millionaire we are talking about YOU here today and YOU alone!&#8232;&#8232; Being unemployed is unsettling and confusing enough. When you feel you have to wade through a mountain of paperwork, provide answers to questions you don't fully understand and then keep 'tittle tattling' to the DWP every time your situation changes (which by the way starts you off at square one with all the form filling and statement photocopying for the housing association etc again)&#8232;it can all just get too much. in the end it is easy to just say 'c'est la vie' and resign yourself to the fate of being branded a benefit cheat if ever your affairs are looked into by one of the very few ay the DWP or higher that DO understand all of this shit!&#8232;&#8232;

2. FLEXIBILITY

&#8232;&#8232;At the moment there is no slack in the system whatsoever. I was told that "you are either working, unemployed or sick - that's it". This is particularly unhelpful when say a person might like to try and see if they could make a go of self-employment. Because at the moment you cannot 'have a go for a few months to see if you could make a job for yourself" people just do not try to have a go. &#8232;At present, the second you sign off, the housing people and the council tear you into financial pieces like a pack of rabid dogs wanting 'their share'. This means in most cases that either someone trying to help themselves is bankrupted or forced to sign back on or that, knowing this will happen, will not even attempt the venture in the first place. We need to take a more 'Sprat to catch a Mackrel' attitude to people that are out of work and provide them with an opportunity to make good rather than perpetually trapping them.&#8232;&#8232;

3. SUPPORT AND UNDERSTANDING

&#8232;&#8232;It is no fun being out of work these days. Forced to tell everyone all of your business you are then treated as if a criminal on probation by having to 'sign on' every two weeks or attend interviews with 'skills training' or some such organisation. Wording of every document you can shake a stick at warns of 'what the law will do to you and the penalties you will face if you don't play the game' and the whole thing is a totally depressing and humiliating experience. &#8232;Depressed people are far less likely to get a job and persecuted or threatened people are far more likely to break the rules because they see their treatment as unfair and this brings about a kind of 'F You' attitude. None of this is positive - the government need to be less quick with the threats and more patient and supportive. Yes you are always going to get some that just don't want to work but the majority do and they do not need to constantly hear themselves referred to by government ministers in the press as 'spungers' or 'workshy'!&#8232;&#8232;

4 THE RIDICULOUS 16 HOURS RULE&#8232;&#8232;

Did you know that 16 hours work counts as a full time job? No, well according to the benefits office it does and if you work more than 16 hours you will find it hard to get any help. What? Can't live on the earnings from just 16 hours work so you are not going to take the job! Well, in that case we will stop your benefits you lazy bastard. &#8232;&#8232;For peats sake lets have a bit of common sense in this world. 16 hours is NOT a full time job so please stop counting as so or start paying everyone that works more than 16 hours overtime! Because of this rule, employers simply choose these days to employ a multitude of workers for 15 and a half or 16 hours rather than take on full time staff. This saves the employer from having to pay all of the insurances etc that they would normally have to for a full time member of staff. The fact that this then creates an army of workers doing only 16 hours a week and either unable to support themselves or having to live on handouts is not good for anyone least of all the economy. Lets go back to a system that encourages employers to employ FULL TIME staff.

Note: I put this piece on here to encourage sensible, respectful debate. If your argument is better than mine prove it don't just sling mud at me because if you do I will take it that even YOU believe your argument inferior to mine. To fully understand the horrors and frustrations of life on benefits I respectfully suggest you have to have experienced the hopelessness of it yourself. With the best will in the world we are not all entrepreneurs or capable of working for ourselves for one reason or another. You have skills that you take for granted others have but just because you can do something it doesn't follow that everyone can!

I can write songs, I can stand up on stage in front of hundreds of people and do a disco but you can build a house or strip a car engine down. The world needs ALL KINDS of people and society/the government/ us as individuals need to recognise that and help each other...[/quote]

You missed this one out Tony.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/12/universal-credit-public-mess-iain-duncan-smith?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487[/quote]

Yes Andrew!

The only thing I would say in total fairness is that at least Universal Credit is in an idea about how to simplify the benefits system.

The snags with it however are that - as we so frequently find via E.U. regulations - one size does NOT fit all. The other problem with it is that yet again the government want to keep their hands firmly on people's lives at all times. Dictatorship by stealth is what I call a lot of the policies these days but what these people cannot see is that we ALL Lose out by such policies. I repeat my opinion that the only way to solve/simplify a lot of the benefit problems is to treat every person as an individual. Have you got any money? - No - right then you get X - no matter whether your Dad is Sheik Mohammed! In the long run the cost of doing so would be recouped by the vastly reduced cost of administrating and adjudicating the current mess.[/quote]

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Topic History of: 'Benefits - Some points for discussion'
Max. showing the last 5 posts - (Last post first)

Author	Message
honey!oh sugar sugar.	andrew wrote: There are always stray dogs around. Apart from the odd one that turns up on our doorstep bleeding (This is how we got our Australian Kelpie) I have hardly seen a stray dog for thirty years. It is no longer considered "appropriate" and they are very quickly rounded up by dog wardens. If you have stray dogs running willy nilly it must be a very unusual place. www.endangereddogs.com/DogLaw_StrayDogs.htm
andrew	There are always stray dogs around.
honey!oh sugar sugar.	andrew wrote: Tories decided to stop benefits for new immigrants for 3 months Tories are scared of UKIP voters, Gof forbid Romanians kill stray dogs what they do in their sordid pathetic country. There are lots of EU laws that the government need to follow about the benefits, why don't we just close up boarders fuck off out the EU and we can still do trading in Europe ? How can they kill stray dogs? We don't have any stray dogs.
andrew	Tories decided to stop benefits for new immigrants for 3 months Tories are scared of UKIP voters, Gof forbid Romanians kill stray dogs what they do in their sordid pathetic country. There are lots of EU laws that the government need to follow about the benefits, why don't we just close up boarders fuck off out the EU and we can still do trading in Europe ?
andrew	Just scrap it the thing. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24806973