Poor ideas for change
Suggested by the public
I found the first five of these in the BBC debate Should benefits be linked to community service?, with the last two coming from a website that the government set up in 2010 to ask for suggestions about how to cut public spending. I'd have to find a way to cope if any of them are forced on me, but I can't believe that any of these will ever be introduced. Nevertheless, they illustrate the mindset that some people have.
Work as soon as you sign on?
A few people suggest that anybody claiming benefits should be made to work for it immediately they sign on. This would be impractical in any case, because from the time you sign on, it takes a while to process your application. For example, if you go to a jobcentre on a Monday, you'll be given various forms to fill in and an appointment will be made for perhaps Wednesday or Thursday. At that meeting, everything has to be checked before the paperwork starts to work its way through the system, after which you will eventually get paid for the period from your signing-on date (the day you first turned up at the jobcentre and were given those forms), if your claim is approved. After that, there would then be an extra process of identifying work for you to do. So you'd have to allow at least a month between signing on for benefit and starting forced work, just to allow for the administration, even before other factors are considered.
I think it unlikely that people claiming for under six months would ever be compelled to work on such schemes, not least because during those first six months, jobseeker's allowance is classed as contribution-based (on national insurance), but you can never be sure what politicians will do. It's also worth remembering that most unemployed people have worked at some time, paying their taxes and national insurance contributions like everybody else. Somebody else asked ...
So how many of you would be happy if your insurance company made you go to work for them for nothing just so that you could make a claim on the policy you have already paid for?
I didn't see anybody suggesting that they would be happy to do that. Nevertheless, I think that if people want to volunteer for such work, they should be allowed to do so once the jobcentre has approved their claim and they're satisfied with the unemployed person's CV.
Work for free?
Suggestions along these lines are great in theory but perhaps the people making them don't know about all the restrictions imposed on benefit claimants. I cannot afford to work for free without those benefits, since they are my only form of income. With benefits, I am restricted to a total maximum of 16 hours per week that includes training and any form of work experience including voluntary work. While that doesn't preclude the idea of free work, it certainly makes it more difficult. More importantly, it also makes re-training more difficult as I explain elsewhere in this blog. Note that New Deal and the new proposals that the government outlined in July 2008 break the 16-hour rule, but the government makes exceptions to suit itself. And if I were to enter into an agreement with an employer to work for free, I would have to cancel it if I were told to do a New Deal project, even if the work experience were more likely to lead to real employment. Rules are rules.
Turn benefits into loans?
Here's another suggestion put by somebody (possibly saddled with a student loan?) who hasn't thought it through. It would mean that the longer that somebody is unemployed, the bigger the debt they would end up with and the less incentive they would have to get a job in which they would have to pay back the debt. If such a scheme were introduced at a level where you'd have to end up in a really well-paid job before being obliged to pay anything back, it would remove that disincentive, but it would also mean that very few people with big debts would pay anything back. The cost of administering the scheme in those circumstances would exceed the money paid back.
Student loans are a different matter entirely. Personally, I didn't think it was a good idea to replace student grants with student loans. Nevertheless, students (being among the most intelligent people) are at the beginning of what, for most of them, ought to be a highly rewarding career. Also, anybody taking on a student loan knows the length of period for which they will be studying and can therefore calculate the size of the debt they will be taking on. Unemployed people, who don't know how long their unemployment will last, cover the whole spectrum of the population and their work prospects are generally bleaker. Some intelligent people are unemployed, including students with outstanding loans. Imagine the impact on those unlucky students, already burdened by student loans, getting further into debt because of unemployment. One young graduate, who has endured the humiliation of unemployment, describes his experiences in his own blog, Unemployed rabbit. I am sure that he wouldn't relish the prospect of adding unemployment debts to debts incurred through studying.
Birth location restriction?
One person suggested that benefits should only be paid in the town of birth, without explaining why, though I'm guessing that it was to stop Immigrant workers claiming benefits. This is another person who hasn't thought about the issue. I was born in Malmesbury, but I live in Leicester, which is 83 miles (134 kilometres) away. The reason that I live in Leicester is because it was the obvious place for me to live during my last employment in Narborough. Why should I be expected to move to Malmesbury just to claim benefit, especially as job prospects in a small market town are likely to be very limited?
My elder sister was born in Malaya (before the formation of Malaysia) because my father worked for the RAF and happened to be stationed there at the time although my sister is most certainly British. If she ever has to claim benefit, is she expected to move to Kuala Lumpur, which is the city of her birth? Or would the person who suggested this say that she is ineligible, notwithstanding that she's paid her taxes and national insurance contributions like everybody else? I don't know how long she spent in Malaya, but given that I was born in England, it was certainly less than two years, none of which she remembers.
David Cameron's wife gave birth to a baby girl in Truro, while the family were on holiday. It happens that their holiday was in Britain, but it could have been anywhere in the world. If that baby eventually has to claim benefits as an adult, forcing her to relocate to Truro would be stupid. Not that there's anything wrong with Truro, which I once visited; it's a very pleasant city. But the example, like my sister's birth, illustates that a baby can be born anywhere depending on where the mother happens to be at the time.
No, the suggestion that benefits be linked to place of birth is ridiculous and politicians would never consider it - at least I don't think so.
Bring back national service?
Some people suggest that national service be re-introduced. I believe that one reason for its abolition was that the Army felt that they wasted a lot of time, money and effort, training and managing people who didn't want to do the work and often weren't any good at it in any case. They might also have thought that such incompetent people sometimes put the lives of professional soldiers in danger. One volunteer is worth ten pressed men, as the old saying goes. The very same principles apply to New Deal and the new proposals that the government outlined in July 2008. If the Army didn't think forced labour worked well prior to the abolition of national service, why should things be any different with modern forced labour schemes?
In any case, national service would only be applicable to young people. Whether or not the idea of its restoration generally has merit of itself (and I'm glad that national service was abolished a few years before I would have become eligible), it wouldn't be sensible to re-introduce it simply as a means of occupying the unemployed. Of course, there may be ways in which the Army can get involved in the new proposals that the government outlined in July 2008, but a return to national service or anything resembling it seemed most unlikely until the aftermath of the 2011 riots. Some politicians are again looking at the old national service again, with a view to applying the basic idea more generally, but while I understand their thinking, I remain sceptical.
Post benefits online?
Inspired by the new openness regarding MP's expenses, the idea is that everybody who is on benefits should be named online, listing the benefits that they claim, to discourage people from claiming benefits illegally. It is suggested that the public would ensure that only the deserving and truly needy receive the right help. The person who suggested this acknowledges that there could be a problem with witch-hunts and random acts of vigilante behaviour, but seems undeterred.
The idea is preposterous, but is another illustration of the way some people think. If the idea is to deter people from choosing unemplyment as a lifestyle, this can be done by reducing payments to people after a given time period. There is no need to run the risk of witch-hunts or vigilantes.
Dump the unemployed abroad?
Under this proposal, people would be offered the chance (but not compelled) to be sent abroad to countries where costs are lower. Just as companies move their factories and call centres abroad to cut costs, so the government could move the unemployed abroad, and pay benefits at the local rate, which would be cheaper than keeping them at home. As proposed, these people would not be allowed to work in their new country (in case they thereby deprived locals of jobs), so condemning them to a life of unemployment. This proposal has echoes of the transportation of convicts to Australia, but I doubt that any country would be willing to host these unemployed people, especially as only the lazy people who don't want to work would volunteer for it. Those like myself who want to at least retain the hope of working again would not join.
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