David Cameron's Diary

If I heard the news correctly this morning, this can be the only natural way the Government can move forward.

I have experience of the Benefits services, having worked in the old Unemployment Benefit Offices and in my days 1981 -1990, the rules were enforced rigidly, with all unemployed being fully aware of their obligations and we had staff that could follow the rules and make sure that benefit was paid out on that basis.

Move forward to 2008 - the environment has completely changed. The claimants now attend the JobCentre to make their claim - great in theory as the JobCentre staff can refer the claimants to jobs and note where there is refusal to consider a job.

From what I understand though, it falls down because of two things:

1. 1. the people in the jobcentre have a legacy of being customer-focussed, helping people look for jobs and are not all ready to deal with the confrontation of telling someone that they may not have been trying hard enough to find work and that their claim is being referred. They did not typically come through the benefit claims route with strict manuals to follow.
2. The Health & Safety Culture means that it is frowned upon to place yourself in a position of danger, yet the opening up of counters to make way for soft lighting and desks means that claimants (or clients as they are referred to in PC terms) instead of now facing the people who actually determine the payment entitlement across protective counters.

As a consequence of these changes, the culture has been allowed to become soft (and the decay started during the Tories reign) ..... it is all too easy to stay on benefits without actively trying to find a job, and unfairly the benefit axe falls on those who play it straight and are caught out by their honesty - the people who miss appointment being drunk or choosing to ignore the appointments seem to get another chance to improve.

Yet for all that criticism, I know from a partly privileged position that there are moves in place to firm up this regime and to pressure the workshy back into work by lengthening and having more probing interviews for longer term unemployed (already happening in some areas)... to persuade them to try and make every effort to find work. Let's see how that goes ... I remain a skeptic.

But for all that negativity about the way the system works, let's come back to my Blog Title and why I say this.

It was reported on the BBC News this morning that the Government wants to look at ways of removing people from Council Houses where there is persistent unemployment and reliance upon benefits to pay the rent.

What poppycock!! The Government will NEVER do this:

1. It will potentially penalise children and would be extremely bad PR for the Government of the day.
2. There is already a problem on the streets with many homeless persons sleeping rough. I hardly see the Government wanting to add to that problem.
3. To get the evictees out of Council Houses but off the streets, there will need to be additional hostel spaces (or equivalent) created. If we are back here again, then we might as well let people stay in their Council Houses rent-paid by the state as the only alternative would appear to be to build work-houses where people work for their bed & board and state benefits - what a throw-back to the Victorian poor-houses that would be.
4. It seems inevitable that any eviction in such a way would guarantee an increase in crime numbers.

It is a problem for Government, with a hard-core of unemployed being relatively comfortable and I dare say in some circumstances happy with their lot, but throwing people to the streets is not something that I can see this or any Government being comfortable with as a policy.

I can't see the electorate thinking it a great idea either and the Government works for us and with our mandate (or should do).

Labels: Labour, Long Term Unemployed, policy, state benefits, strategy