Darren Looby's Blog

Have a look at what the Daily Mail (sometimes called Daily Fail) is up to now – good reporting from good old Perfidious Albion.

For some reason, they’ve ignored a survey on their own site – suspiciously, and replaced it with an identical question. Though, this one has very different results – I wonder why.

http://refpls.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/daily-mail-rigs-poll/

Stephen Hodgson posted recently with a blog titled “Ending the Free Ride”. It made me think, and so this is my response…

There are a few things I wanted to pick up on, so I’ve picked a few key points – please nip over and read Stephen’s post in full when you have the time [http://hodg.co.uk/2010/04/21/ending-the-free-ride/].

Cut the benefits of anyone who refuses to take up reasonable job offers;

Firstly, and perhaps obviously, how do you measure reasonable job offers?

It is important to take in to account that this really is referring to Job Seekers Allowance – which is central, given that it is not limited people that are un-employed, but also includes people that are under-employed.

Not only is it difficult to quantify or indeed qualify what a “reasonable job offer” is, how would a Job Centre Advisor – or Claims Assessor balance whether a job offer is reasonable in light of those under-employed? They would need to take into account work/life balance, whether or not a job is worth doing and many other factors.

Cut benefits for up to three years for anyone caught repeatedly committing benefit fraud;

I’d like to point out an issue here – fraud, being in this case a criminal offence, should carry a punishment in a court of law. Any punishment spent shouldn’t be taken into account when applications are made for benefits – how and when they are spent is a matter for the court.

It is also important to understand that many benefits also affect the life of dependants – for instance children or disabled relatives. Blindly removing benefits as and when a civil service department requires – puts the process (and therefore lives) at risk of being driven by targets.

It is always important, and perhaps often forgotten, that benefits are often designed to extend to dependants – which cannot be held responsible.

Reassess all current claimants of incapacity benefit – if you are fit for work then you will be transferred onto JSA; and

If the current system declares someone as eligible for incapacity benefit – reassessing them becomes a waste of time and money, as the results will be the same if the assessment criteria haven’t changed.

Either that or it’ll be a witch hunt for people that can be singled out – and rather than it being the result of vigilant and reasoned development of the assessment process, it becomes a change in attitude toward the claimant. In essence, it’ll be vilifying people.

The correct way of approaching this issue, is to redefine how incapacity is established, the spectrum of incapacity and the resultant financial benefit or available resources. Then, assess all future claims with this regard – and do the same with renewals.

Make sure you get help as soon as you need it – straight away for those really struggling to find work, and after six months if you’re less than 25 years old;

Perhaps I’m being picky but, this idea is at odds with itself – how can you help someone straight away, if they are struggling to find work? Surely, in order to discover their struggle, they need to have tried and failed over an extended period – thus, not straight away.

The proposals give the impression of helping people regardless of age with a one size fits all program – get people younger than 25 you have to wait 6 months, whereas those older can get help “straight away”?

If you’re under the age of 25, provide a huge range of extra training opportunities – 400,000 apprenticeship, training and college places over two years; and

Some nice numbers, however, this is not something the government (any of any party) is able to directly achieve – apprenticeships can’t work without businesses taking part. Currently, there is a cost associated with hiring an apprentice – granted, lower than standard employees, but many businesses worry about the costs of taking someone on that requires lots of support during their learning curve.

Without having some serious support from business, being able to state numbers is mostly naïve – though, I’ll admit that it would be possible to commit to most numbers if you have a bottomless pit from which to keep pushing the agenda.

What with not providing any costing “places” means very little – what are the durations, skills, costs to students – who will provide them?

Pay back-to-work providers in full only if they get you into work for a year or more.

There are many things that can affect someone’s long term employment – the wider economic climate, as we all should know by now, is one such factor.

A whole year after an employment goal, how does that make it a sustainable process? The only way this can work, is that providers get paid enough to run while waiting for these payments – essentially for failure to sustain itself.

Perhaps we could call these success payments a bonus – while nice, it points directly to private sector providers, precisely the problem with the current system. The New Deal program, before being updated – was plagued by for-profit companies making money out of people’s misfortune, and even out of a minority of laziness.

It remains to be seen how the updated version “Flexible New Deal” pans out in this regard. Either way, the new jazzed up Flexible New Deal is in many ways similar to what the Conservative Party seem to be offering.

It is entirely possible (if not likely) that such a provider could provide a high standard of service – yet still not receive full payment. Along with the general Conservative Party sentiment that many unemployed and underemployed people are in it for a “free ride” – are they not expecting people to quit, give up, or generally not perform well for an employer. It becomes pot-luck – if you find a good client, you’ll get paid, if not, tough.

Paying an organisation a whole year after interaction causes a number of problems – not least the administration and auditing of the process.

How can a back-to-work provider ensure that they are being paid correctly, without being able to track every single client – I personally have a problem with independent private organisations being able to track my state of employment. For no reason, other than they have no right to such information.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Liberal Democrat proposal to remove Student Tuition Fees is an empty gesture. A way of saying what’s popular, to buy off voters with big promises – we’ve had so much of that over the last 65 years, why should they be any different?

Free education is a matter of principle for a Liberal – education being the most important tool for social mobility, and not least to say a human right. The degree, it could be argued – is the milestone, or benchmark for academic education. Whereas there are lots of other comparables with degrees, such as apprenticeships, that need also to be considered in the larger debate (after all, not everyone sees University as step on their ladder) we’ll stick with just that here.

As mentioned, the degree is the benchmark of achievement for those on the academic route to lifelong fulfilment (or their shot at it). There are qualifications and steps before and after the degree – but we need to identify a point at which a “right” can be conferred.

When we say, “a right to education” – we mean up until the point at which one earns their first degree, or at least should mean that.

Why?

Quite simply, away from any squabbles about the value of degrees nowadays, they represent the beginning of expertises in an area – which eventually affords you the honour of being a productive member of society.

What of it?

This is an important area of understanding, as if something should be a right – it is hard to argue that such a right shouldn’t be equal, and of course fair. Social mobility, or the ability to remove the obstacles presented by class or financial wealth for those uninitiated in political jargon – is a cornerstone in why the right to education is important. For as much as it is important for an individual to work hard for their success – in all its varieties, it is also important for society to allow (or perhaps even demand) each person to reach their full potential.

Yes, lots of people are being educated under the current tuition fee system – but the debt they incur in taking part in growth, is not a debt that assists their potential at all. For every poor student in the system, can we not imagine someone being put off by a cost equal to the best part of a deposit on a small house?

Is it practical?

There is a huge cost to education – in all age ranges, and of course universities incur a big chunk of that investment. Of course, we need to see it as an investment too – just as we see education in primary and secondary education as investment, or it becomes pointless.

An investment then, should build on industries, knowledge – and capacity of skill. Not, as it has developed – and industry in and of itself, that is often accused of milking profit from students.

Of course, there is the economy to think about. It would be lovely if it hadn’t been ruined by greedy, rich bankers and neglectfully unqualified politicians – or whichever group we decide to pin the blame on. We can’t just switch off the fees, unfortunately, so a longer term and practical strategy has to be implemented.

The Liberal Democrat strategy takes 6 years, like this:

Year 1 – Scrap fees for final year full-time students

Year 2 – Begin regulating part-time fees

Year 3 – Part time fees become regulated and fee loans become available to part-time students

Year 4 – Expand free tuition to all full-time students apart from first year undergraduates

Year 5 – Expand free tuition to all part-time students apart from first year undergraduates

Year 6 – Scrap tuition fees for all first degree students