Minister Jim Murphy will be online on Wednesday 28 March at 1500 GMT to
answer your questions about welfare reform.

He wants to hear your questions and comments about the benefits system
and the tough decisions Government must make in the future to ensure the
system is fair to everyone.

A recent report by investment banker David Freud suggested that a
"rebalancing" of rights and responsibilities was needed - matching
increased support with greater obligations on claimants to look for
work.



http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page11245.asp

With the greatest of respect for Mr Murphy, but all this talk of "ensuring the system is fair to everyone" and "a rebalancing of rights and responsibilities with greater obligations on claimants to look for work" has more than a touch of de ja vu about it.

We've heard most of this before, in various guises from a number of Mr Murphy's predesessors. In the past one or two of the Ministers have actually meant it, but this time I fear that the real motive behind the desire for yet another set of sweeping changes is financial efficiency - in short, the bottom line.

Many of us have also been there before - I still vaguely recall young Mr Blair's promise of a benefit system that would be fair, easily understood and transparent. I can also remember going to a meeting which Frank Field, (the first Social Security Minister of the new 1997 Blair administration) attended, listening to him speak about change etc, and then watching him ride off into the sunset not long afterwards, having resigned on some point of principle.

before they start talking about the obligations of the claimant, they really should look at their obligations towards the substantial minority of physically and mentally disabled claimants for whom work is not an option, and who often experience the greatest difficulty in accessing and retaining benefits, because the system is so complicated (from their prospective).

When CMS was first introduced, no thought was given whatsoever to the difficulties an all electronic claiming system would pose to these client groups, difficulties that were compounded by an abject refusal by local offices to accept clerical claims, and the introduction of the appointments only policy in local offices.

If they had bothered to listen in the past, they would already know the views of LA's and other welfare rights agencies where the benefit system is concerned. It's only in the past twelve months have they wanted to create meaningful liason with "Stakeholders" at regional and local levels primarily at the instigation of Matthew Nicholas.

Prior to that, many of us had been attending national level meetings, regularly presenting evidence of the myriad problems that kept coming up time and time again - the LGA/Social Security advisory group, the DWP standards committee advisory group to name but two.

If Mr Murphy really wants to hear the views of Welfare rights workers, he should make time to attend meetings with those that work at the grass roots, and whose understanding of how the system really works (or not) is based on reality, not what middle management report back.

I would like to say though, that I have met some senior officials from JCP who are genuinely trying to make the present system work - and I've also met others who have graduated with a MA in The art of Spin doctoring, originally devised by the master, Alaster Campbell.

It's only Monday, and I feel better already..........

Little Con(versation)/ Big Con(versation) - Welfare State / WorkFare

......I think I just said that, only in slightly more detail......

I know Mike, it was mumbled in solidarity, and whimpered as a cry for help?

little con/big con...do you know what? i'm really frustrated by the so -called consultation exercises which really control the agenda...

Jim Murphy is fully aware, when he and Tony talk of the 'something for something' benefit system in the context of 'rebalancing' rights and responsibilities, that the welfare state was set up with National Insurance as the cornerstone of the benefits system. Those active in bringing about the welfare state were insistent on having an insurance based system of rights, in return for a compulsory contribution system. Why? because they were sickened by the humiliation meted out in the process of having their worthiness to receive a hand-out judged by local worthies whose lives were some distance removed from the ravaging effects of the depression. the spectre of that particular means-test lived on a long time after it was defunct by WW2 and 1948, just as the earlier horror of the workhouse and pauper's burials lingered...i know from personal experience that the 'myths' lingered well into the eighties - that's 50 years of folk memory after the damage was done, and 30 years after it was addressed..something to think about...

David Freud's little re-potted history is so selective an introduction to his eventual conclusions one could almost imagine the review started with the recommendations and worked backwards...am i alone in doubting its credibility?

http://books.global-investor.com/books/27032.htm?ginPtrCode=00000&identifier=

the welfare reform _verbiage_ is light on the benefits system, concentrating on the labour market issues...or even the creation of a labour market market, (yes, that it not a typo.) what is brought into the benefit system, apart from further reduction in what you get for your NI contribution (shrinking almost from the get go, and rapidly since 1987...) is the concept of conditionality.

conditionality, which is individually personalized, and obviously much favoured by TB, cuts right across the idea of rights. Blair has been enamoured of the notion of using the social security system for the purpose of controlling behaviour for many years, depite what anyone might tell him otherwise... i'm beginning to wonder if his ma wasn't frightened by a track-suit during pregnancy...but otherwise, his understanding of the benefit system and the lives of people who use it appears to be fairly superficial, as indeed...no, i'm not even going to go there...


right to an insurance benefit for sickness, is going to be replaced with a system of 'customised conditionality' hoops, administered by the haphazard luck of the draw, yet to be determined. this radical change, based on little more than TB's instincts and a review by a former FT journalist turned banker, has the potential to be very socially damaging indeed. there is no business case for it. to assist people into work properly is expensive. the bottom-line for governments is always costs. what if its intro is as inefficient as CMS? there is a risk it could actually cost peoples' lives, and if the spin isn't challenged, in such an event, we can expect denial. we've seen it before - remember care in the community, f'rinstance?
how is this a benefit system suitable for the 21st century?

- take a good look around you - CCTV cameras everywhere, identity cards to become compulsory, political correctness by the van load, not just the nanny State but "the State knows best": the lines between the Legislature, the Executive and the legal system become more indistinct by the day - and now we are informed that a gentleman described as having Stalinist tendancies may well be our next Prime Minister...............

"Chancellor Gordon Brown's Treasury operates with "Stalinist ruthlessness", treating colleagues with contempt, the ex-head of the civil servant has said. Lord Turnbull, who was also Mr Brown's permanent secretary for four years, said the chancellor would not allow serious discussion about priorities. Mr Brown had a "very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues", he added".

BBC NEWS - 20.3.07

Lord Turnbull knows better than to talk to the FT off the record.
i honestly don't know how to read the Brown situation - the man is, like Don Quixote, a question mark to me, which is odd in itself, considering the media attention on new labour all these years. plenty of reasons to be pessimistic, and yet some wishful thinking on my part, cynic that i am often...
what i'd really like to know is a definitive answer to whether gordon brown knows about the tax credit overpayments/offset nonsense, or not. maybe i should write to him? : )