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Subject: "freud's journey" First topic | Last topic
shawn
                              

editorial director, rightsnet
Member since
28th Jul 2005

freud's journey
Mon 30-Nov-09 12:14 PM

interview with david freud from epolitix.com -

'In late 2006 the government approached me to undertake a review of welfare reform.

I'd had a long career as a banker, and when you're a banker you act for the government of the day – it's important not to show your political views.

I thought that welfare reform was a critical area and one that was sadly neglected, so I wanted to find out whether I could revitalise the agenda.

Very little had been done on welfare reform ever since Frank Field had left the government, and everyone in the industry had got pretty stale.

John Hutton, then work and pensions secretary, wanted someone to come from the outside, have a good look at it, and ask some basic questions. It had to be done incredibly fast.

As a former journalist and investment banker, I was someone who could be relied on to do something on a tight timescale, and I suspect that was more important than any particular expertise.

I wanted to restructure the welfare reform industry so that it could get payment by results, but my report moved in a slightly odd way and went in and out of political favour.

Tony Blair was clearly pushing my report, but at the launch in early March 2007 Gordon Brown was very careful to say that the report underpinned the importance of welfare reform, which he would champion, rather than that he would champion my report.

At the time, however, it wasn't clear to me that it had stalled.

By the end of the summer Peter Hain, who succeeded Hutton, called me in and said he wanted to work through my agenda, although he had far less conviction and energy in this area than his successor James Purnell would later demonstrate.

The Conservatives had always shown a great interest in the approach suggested by my report.

The convention is that you brief all the political parties, which I did very carefully, and Chris Grayling, then the shadow pensions secretary, adopted the report's principles pretty wholeheartedly.

David Cameron announced the Conservative strategy along these lines in early 2008, and I was very encouraged to see it.

Purnell then asked me to advise him on implementing my report.

Well, of course I would advise anyone on how to implement my report, so I said I would do it for a year.

I made it very clear that the key issue was all the people on incapacity benefit.

The government accepted this in principle, though working on the issue actually turned out to be pretty slow in practice.

When the year was up, the Conservatives asked if I would like to work for them in a political role, and I thought it made a lot of sense.

I had had various conversations about various things, from about mid-2007, but the idea for the role came up in the week before the announcement was made.

It wasn't the traditional walking-across-the-floor as some have painted it – it was walking from a neutral advisory position into a formal political position.

I decided I would be happy to display my true colours and even happier if I could do this particular job.'
more @ http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/freuds-dreams-of-welfare-revolution/

  

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ben
                              

Advice and Support Worker, Your Homes Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne
Member since
17th Dec 2007

RE: freud's journey
Mon 30-Nov-09 03:56 PM

"As a former journalist and investment banker, I was someone who could be relied on to do something on a tight timescale, and I suspect that was more important than any particular expertise."

Quite telling that. I wonder if the tight timescale allowed any rationale whatsoever for the claim that 2 million Incapacity Benefit claimants could work.

  

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Top Policy topic #1658First topic | Last topic