Well now we have it from the horse’s mouth – the middle classes are going to suffer too. According to Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, the middle classes are unaware of the scale of government spending cuts that will hit them this year.
In other words, Tory England is going to hurt about as much as it does for us oiks, who survive on a day to day basis. No great surprise there! The news comes hot in pursuit of other reports that Birmingham City Council is to axe 7,000 jobs as part of their cuts programme.
Birmingham has always been a candidate for mass redundancies, particularly as the Council is Tory-led, with significant back-up from the Lib-Dems. In fact, the Council has never been noted for its care for its workforce (see a more detailed report here) and these announcements will have a profound effect on working people in Birmingham.
Clarke is right to point out they will suffer as a result of these cuts, but he should have told the whole truth – everyone will hurt, and in a very big and painful way. So, why did he isolate just the middle classes? Easy, you only have to look at the fact he gave the interview to the Daily Telegraph to find your answer. He is desperately trying to shore up Tory votes and where better to reach out to middle class Tories than in their very own rag?
In three months time local elections will fall again and good money is on a landslide loss of seats for both Tories and Lib-Dems. Look at any map and see which councils they run and you quickly realise the close links they have with the middle classes – Woking, Westminster, Stafford, Basingstoke and Shrewsbury and Atcham – not exactly poverty crisis points dominated by an ‘underclass’ of poor.
But wouldn’t it be nice if one day a Tory or a Liberal Democrat politician were to turn around and fight for the rights of the working classes? Of course that’s not going to happen – after all, what does David Cameron, have in common with the average worker, or single parent. His estimated (albeit disputed) personal wealth of £30m places him in a totally different league. Indeed, in his Cabinet, Cameron has eighteen millionaires, including Nick Clegg, although in his defence, little Nick only owns about £1.8m.
All of this led Sadiq Khan to suggest these rich Tories were unable to empathise with the average worker. Speaking to James Kirkup of the Daily Telegraph, he said:
That they are rich is relevant because of the lack of empathy. I’m not saying that they can’t empathise – but they just don’t get it.
For them, tightening your belt is taking two holidays a year instead of three . . . or having one au pair rather than two. I think it is a problem if you have a cabinet that doesn’t understand the real challenges that people face. If you have a background that is one-dimensional and have not had the life experiences or understood what sacrifice means to ordinary punters, I would say it is difficult.
But Khan needs to be careful. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has an estimated personal wealth of around £4m, Ed Balls is the son of a professor, and attended a fee-paying school; Harriet Harman went to St Pauls and her aunt is a countess; and Shaun Woodward is a multimillionaire with homes in several countries.
In short it seems none of the party leaders have much in common with any of us working folks. They all live in safe financial cocoons, with chauffeur-driven transport, where foreign holidays are expected and their annual clothing budget is probably more than the average person pays in a decade.
Not sure about my readers, but I haven’t been away for a holiday for three years and when I did, it was to Devon (don’t knock it – gorgeous county and wonderful people). Last year I spent approximately £100 on clothing – and that includes socks and underwear. I don’t drive, so I have to rely on busses and my monthly pass costs me £40. I was looking forward to getting an older person’s bus pass soon, but my local area seem likely to scrap that.
I’m not complaining about my life – more would be nice, of course, but I am happy with things the way they are. What angers me is when politicians try to tell me they know what its like to be me. Or how those with far more money than me tell me they know what is like to worry about money.
Yesterday I toured around the power companies, because if I stayed with my current supplier I would have to pay £12 more a month. If Messrs Cameron, Osborne, Clarke and Clegg can tell me they did the same I will sit back and shut up.
Until then I have a right to be angry.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Friday, 11 February 2011
No tears for Eric Illsley
This morning Eric Illsley is waking up in a small cell, where he will languish for the next few months. Now, I like to think myself as a caring person, so I am really trying hard to feel sorry for him. Unfortunately, I am failing dismally.
Let’s look at some of the facts – he first entered parliament in 1987, but his political career was never that much to write home to granny about. Sure, he sat on the front bench for a short time, but he was soon consigned to the back benches when Labour came to power.
As for his voting record? Well, he grumbled a bit about Iraq, but at the end of the day went along with the Blair government. On identity cards, he voted in favour. He supported the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill when it came before the house. On asylum seekers, he voted for stricter controls and he voted against laws to stop climate change.
Yup, this sounds like a real good socialist here. I can see he will be sadly missed in the party. (Do you detect a hint of cynicism?).
Even when he comes out of nick he won’t fair too badly. I mean, let’s face it he’s been on quite a nice little number for the last 23 years. The pays pretty good and he clearly thought the expenses were decent. On discharge he’ll probably right a book or two about his experiences – Jeffrey Archer seemed to do quite well out of that little activity. Then there’ll be the occasional TV appearance.
No, I won’t shed too many tears for Mr Illsley – I think he’ll cope quite nicely, thank you very much.
Let’s look at some of the facts – he first entered parliament in 1987, but his political career was never that much to write home to granny about. Sure, he sat on the front bench for a short time, but he was soon consigned to the back benches when Labour came to power.
As for his voting record? Well, he grumbled a bit about Iraq, but at the end of the day went along with the Blair government. On identity cards, he voted in favour. He supported the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill when it came before the house. On asylum seekers, he voted for stricter controls and he voted against laws to stop climate change.
Yup, this sounds like a real good socialist here. I can see he will be sadly missed in the party. (Do you detect a hint of cynicism?).
Even when he comes out of nick he won’t fair too badly. I mean, let’s face it he’s been on quite a nice little number for the last 23 years. The pays pretty good and he clearly thought the expenses were decent. On discharge he’ll probably right a book or two about his experiences – Jeffrey Archer seemed to do quite well out of that little activity. Then there’ll be the occasional TV appearance.
No, I won’t shed too many tears for Mr Illsley – I think he’ll cope quite nicely, thank you very much.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Musings of a new granddad
Recently I became a grandfather and since the birth I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the kind of society young Zach will inherit as he grows up. A chance to also consider whether all those changes I dreamed of and campaigned for as a young man have happened.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s we were going to change the world. Our heroes were radicals with exotic names – Tariq Ali, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mao Tse-Tung. We fought on the streets, on campuses and in the back rooms of dingy pubs, all in the belief that any day the old order would fail and we would herald a new age. An era with equality for all, an absence of poverty and above all, freedom from the threat of nuclear war.
Forty years on, it seems to me very little has changed. Our revolutionary leaders either conformed to the “system”, or have been discredited. Tariq Ali became one of the leading lights of mainstream Labour party politics, Daniel Cohn-Bendit joined the Greens and sits in Strasbourg as a member of the European Parliament and Mao has been thoroughly discredited and found to be far more authoritarian than all our worst nightmares.
In the 60s and even in the 70s, we marched against a variety of wars, including the Six-Day war and Vietnam. Today we oppose conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forty years ago, we marched from Aldermaston to London in opposition to nuclear weapons. Nowadays, we stand silently as the government announces there will be a replacement for Trident.
As a young man and eager member of the Communist party, determined to change the world I stood horrified as the Berlin wall was raised, and watched the oppression in Czechoslovakia. There is no Communist party today – well there is, depending on whether you want to look at the Communist Party of Great Britain, the New Communist Party or the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The revolutionary road has been largely superseded by the democratic path but, just like in the 1960s there is little or no money in the coffers, so most of the hard left find it hard to stand candidates.
The Labour Party back in the 1960s was led by a one-time lefty, who swung to the right once he took over the leadership. Those on the left in those days had held much hope in the leadership of Harold Wilson, only to find him slipping away from the fundamental values outlined in Clause lV of the Constitution of the Party. In 2011, there is no Clause lV – well that’s not strictly true, but there is no longer any requirement for the party to seek control for the means of production and distribution. Blair and his New Labour project effectively put paid to that idea. The latest incarnation of leadership in the Labour Party is a product of the New Labour project and despite being nicknamed “Red Ed”, his pronouncements against strike action to oppose the cuts are reminiscent of the words of Wilson, Callaghan and Kinnock.
In the 1960s, we rediscovered the notion of poverty and began to realize there is an ‘underclass’ in modern society – a sector who earn less than 60% of the national average income. Fourteen years ago, New Labour declared war on poverty – they failed – we still have an underclass and little, if anything has changed. The top elite still own the vast majority of the wealth in this country. A carer will still live on a substandard income whilst a banker can earn an annual income in excess of £8m
So am I cynical? Yes – and I think I have a right to be. My generation let our young people down. We sold out our values for the comfort of a modern three- or four-bedroomed semi in the ‘burbs. We satisfied our idealism with pay increases and a more comfortable life. When Maggie set about dismantling the unions we didn’t cry out in horror and when Blair finished the job we sniffed and said: “So what can I do about it?”
In short, my generation doesn’t have much to be proud of. A lot of failed ideals and trashed values. So my prayer for my young son is simple. Learn from us – don’t sell out, don’t give in and don’t trust those who tell you that sooner or later the system is about to change. It isn’t. The system will never change – you have to change it.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s we were going to change the world. Our heroes were radicals with exotic names – Tariq Ali, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mao Tse-Tung. We fought on the streets, on campuses and in the back rooms of dingy pubs, all in the belief that any day the old order would fail and we would herald a new age. An era with equality for all, an absence of poverty and above all, freedom from the threat of nuclear war.
Forty years on, it seems to me very little has changed. Our revolutionary leaders either conformed to the “system”, or have been discredited. Tariq Ali became one of the leading lights of mainstream Labour party politics, Daniel Cohn-Bendit joined the Greens and sits in Strasbourg as a member of the European Parliament and Mao has been thoroughly discredited and found to be far more authoritarian than all our worst nightmares.
In the 60s and even in the 70s, we marched against a variety of wars, including the Six-Day war and Vietnam. Today we oppose conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forty years ago, we marched from Aldermaston to London in opposition to nuclear weapons. Nowadays, we stand silently as the government announces there will be a replacement for Trident.
As a young man and eager member of the Communist party, determined to change the world I stood horrified as the Berlin wall was raised, and watched the oppression in Czechoslovakia. There is no Communist party today – well there is, depending on whether you want to look at the Communist Party of Great Britain, the New Communist Party or the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The revolutionary road has been largely superseded by the democratic path but, just like in the 1960s there is little or no money in the coffers, so most of the hard left find it hard to stand candidates.
The Labour Party back in the 1960s was led by a one-time lefty, who swung to the right once he took over the leadership. Those on the left in those days had held much hope in the leadership of Harold Wilson, only to find him slipping away from the fundamental values outlined in Clause lV of the Constitution of the Party. In 2011, there is no Clause lV – well that’s not strictly true, but there is no longer any requirement for the party to seek control for the means of production and distribution. Blair and his New Labour project effectively put paid to that idea. The latest incarnation of leadership in the Labour Party is a product of the New Labour project and despite being nicknamed “Red Ed”, his pronouncements against strike action to oppose the cuts are reminiscent of the words of Wilson, Callaghan and Kinnock.
In the 1960s, we rediscovered the notion of poverty and began to realize there is an ‘underclass’ in modern society – a sector who earn less than 60% of the national average income. Fourteen years ago, New Labour declared war on poverty – they failed – we still have an underclass and little, if anything has changed. The top elite still own the vast majority of the wealth in this country. A carer will still live on a substandard income whilst a banker can earn an annual income in excess of £8m
So am I cynical? Yes – and I think I have a right to be. My generation let our young people down. We sold out our values for the comfort of a modern three- or four-bedroomed semi in the ‘burbs. We satisfied our idealism with pay increases and a more comfortable life. When Maggie set about dismantling the unions we didn’t cry out in horror and when Blair finished the job we sniffed and said: “So what can I do about it?”
In short, my generation doesn’t have much to be proud of. A lot of failed ideals and trashed values. So my prayer for my young son is simple. Learn from us – don’t sell out, don’t give in and don’t trust those who tell you that sooner or later the system is about to change. It isn’t. The system will never change – you have to change it.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Pricing universities out of reach
When I was 18 I wasn’t very interested in studying, so the idea of going to university never really raised its head. In those days, like many of my generation, all I wanted was a few beers of a night and the chance to meet lots of girls. So I went to work in a job I hated, on a salary that offered no real opportunity for expansion and with no real career prospects.
Fortunately ten years later my thinking had changed and I applied to do a degree. Now I was never one of those academic elite who felt able to go to Oxbridge. I was closer to one of those oiks that went to what they now call a new university – in those days we called them polytechnics.
I was very grateful for my place and particularly relieved that I was given a full grant and even a few pounds extra because I was a mature student. Had I have been forced to pay student fees there is no way I could have afforded to go. I was a husband and a father (though I was to be divorced just weeks before going to ‘the poly’.
I studied hard, managed to obtain a good degree and went on later to gain a teaching qualification and a master’s degree. Because of circumstances I had an employer who paid for both of these postgraduate qualifications – again if I had been forced to pay the fees myself I would not have been able to afford them.
I am in no doubt I have been very fortunate.
Today I hear Oxford will probably charge £9,000 a year for tuition fees to study at their illustrious university – slightly less than the annual salary of someone on a statutory minimum wage and substantially more than the amount a married couple receive on the dole.
For someone like myself, who went back to education later in life this huge hike in fees is a disgrace and divisive. It will mean very few working class people will be able to think about going to Oxford or any of the other ‘red bricks’– even if intellectually they would be able to cope with the standards required.
So we have a situation, thanks to Cameron and Clegg, where the working class, and particularly those who are out of work, can never aspire to entering the portals of academia. Effectively they have made learning beyond the financial reach of the poor, the underprivileged, the unemployed, the disabled and ordinary working class folk with families who want to return to education.
Oh, and what about the single mothers who want a chance to develop their lives once their baby is old enough to be handed to a childminder?
It is an absolute disgrace and epitomises the divisiveness of this government – where the ‘haves’ can get the opportunities, and the ‘have not’s’ are forced to struggle through life, trying to make ends meet. No doubt Cameron would prefer the kind of society epitomised in the book “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist”. As society where the privileged have all the finer things in life and the working class scrape an existence, fighting a daily battle to survive
No guesses as to which side of the fence Clegg and Cameron want to sit on!
Fortunately ten years later my thinking had changed and I applied to do a degree. Now I was never one of those academic elite who felt able to go to Oxbridge. I was closer to one of those oiks that went to what they now call a new university – in those days we called them polytechnics.
I was very grateful for my place and particularly relieved that I was given a full grant and even a few pounds extra because I was a mature student. Had I have been forced to pay student fees there is no way I could have afforded to go. I was a husband and a father (though I was to be divorced just weeks before going to ‘the poly’.
I studied hard, managed to obtain a good degree and went on later to gain a teaching qualification and a master’s degree. Because of circumstances I had an employer who paid for both of these postgraduate qualifications – again if I had been forced to pay the fees myself I would not have been able to afford them.
I am in no doubt I have been very fortunate.
Today I hear Oxford will probably charge £9,000 a year for tuition fees to study at their illustrious university – slightly less than the annual salary of someone on a statutory minimum wage and substantially more than the amount a married couple receive on the dole.
For someone like myself, who went back to education later in life this huge hike in fees is a disgrace and divisive. It will mean very few working class people will be able to think about going to Oxford or any of the other ‘red bricks’– even if intellectually they would be able to cope with the standards required.
So we have a situation, thanks to Cameron and Clegg, where the working class, and particularly those who are out of work, can never aspire to entering the portals of academia. Effectively they have made learning beyond the financial reach of the poor, the underprivileged, the unemployed, the disabled and ordinary working class folk with families who want to return to education.
Oh, and what about the single mothers who want a chance to develop their lives once their baby is old enough to be handed to a childminder?
It is an absolute disgrace and epitomises the divisiveness of this government – where the ‘haves’ can get the opportunities, and the ‘have not’s’ are forced to struggle through life, trying to make ends meet. No doubt Cameron would prefer the kind of society epitomised in the book “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist”. As society where the privileged have all the finer things in life and the working class scrape an existence, fighting a daily battle to survive
No guesses as to which side of the fence Clegg and Cameron want to sit on!
Excellent site - worth visiting
This is well worth a visit if you care about those who are jobless.
http://www.workprogramme.org.uk/
It's not me and I have no involvement in it, but they have a lot of good stuff there. Look at it and link to it.
http://www.workprogramme.org.uk/
It's not me and I have no involvement in it, but they have a lot of good stuff there. Look at it and link to it.
Out of work? Heaven help you ....
The Big Society has had a bad week and it looks likely things are not due to improve. Matters looked bleak when Liverpool pulled out of a Big Society pilot programme and they then moved from bad to worse when its driving force, Lord Wei announced his intention to scale back his commitment.
If all this didn’t give Cameron a headache, then pronouncements by Dame Elisabeth Hoodless didn’t help. Twenty-four hours later, revelations emerged that Eric Pickles blocked proposals to protect Cameron's flagship "big society" project from the harshest of council spending cuts. By now the PM must have been feeling like the King of Kadesh at the Siege of Meggido – except for Cameron, there was no escape route.
One concern coming from the Third Sector is that they feel they are being squeezed. The Government is encouraging them to take over delivery of critical services (running of libraries, job clubs etc). Against this, they have inflicted substantial cuts to local funding in order to reduce the deficit.
Consequences of this can be found on the GB Job Clubs website. Many of their network of over 100 local clubs are strapped for cash, so they are offering the chance to ‘put their names in a hat’ for a free laptop. GB Job Clubs was set up in 2009 by Chris Neal (a retired derivatives broker with strong Tory connections) with support from the Cobden Centre. Like many charities, it is struggling financially. The organisation was initially funded by Neal with a £500 start-up budget and has since received some support from local authorities and the Church Urban Fund.
With the latest raft of austerity measures, this funding is under threat and is likely to impact on Neal’s network. If local clubs cannot secure finance for premises, equipment and day-to-day running costs, they could close – bringing an end to the amalgamation of Tory small state idealism as seen in the Big Society and localised job-hunting services.
Would they be missed? It is far too early to gauge whether they have achieved any success. Neal claims 30% of those who lose their job find another one through friends, family or contacts and his clubs provide the social networking to make this happen.
What is known is that historically, they have not been particularly successful. First opened in 1984 in the North East, a number of studies argued they were of limited value. A 1986 Guardian report into how the scheme was functioning in Dundee found that of the city's 7,100 long-term unemployed, only 147 people had been found places at job clubs and only six people on the wider Job Start scheme had actually found work.
If they fail, or are forced to close their doors, many providers will be expected to pick up the slack they leave behind. The sector has the necessary skills and experience to take over the role, but existing job club clients will be used to a service that mentors, supports and befriend. In some instances volunteers will have given many hours encouraging clients and building their self-worth whilst helping them write CVs, providing transport to interviews, or simply offering a resource to create peer self-help support groups.
These resources are expensive and providers will be hard pushed to match such intense levels of support. If they have to take over the functions of job clubs they will need to think how they will deliver this kind of service. Equally, if job clubs survive and find the funding to continue, providers will need to consider how they will make themselves an attractive and welcome alternative.
Evidence shows only 8% of clients attending programmes run by independent training providers secure full-time, sustainable employment. With statistics like this, it would suggest the jobless would probably be just as successful sat at home writing for jobs whilst watching morning TV. Indeed, this option could save the Government millions whilst offering the unemployed the chance to feel they had some say in their own future.
There has never been any kind of caring and supportive initiative designed to support the jobless and help them achieve the goals they feel are important to them. Many want the chance to work, but current and previous provisions are dominated by ‘targets’ and ‘sales figures’ that simply move the jobless off the unemployment register and into some kind of work – even if it doesn’t suit the client. Equally, others want the chance to retrain, but the current funding structure for contracts means that it is against the best interests of providers to support this option as they will not get paid if the client goes to college.
In short, the system doesn’t work, won’t work and ultimately will collapse!
If all this didn’t give Cameron a headache, then pronouncements by Dame Elisabeth Hoodless didn’t help. Twenty-four hours later, revelations emerged that Eric Pickles blocked proposals to protect Cameron's flagship "big society" project from the harshest of council spending cuts. By now the PM must have been feeling like the King of Kadesh at the Siege of Meggido – except for Cameron, there was no escape route.
One concern coming from the Third Sector is that they feel they are being squeezed. The Government is encouraging them to take over delivery of critical services (running of libraries, job clubs etc). Against this, they have inflicted substantial cuts to local funding in order to reduce the deficit.
Consequences of this can be found on the GB Job Clubs website. Many of their network of over 100 local clubs are strapped for cash, so they are offering the chance to ‘put their names in a hat’ for a free laptop. GB Job Clubs was set up in 2009 by Chris Neal (a retired derivatives broker with strong Tory connections) with support from the Cobden Centre. Like many charities, it is struggling financially. The organisation was initially funded by Neal with a £500 start-up budget and has since received some support from local authorities and the Church Urban Fund.
With the latest raft of austerity measures, this funding is under threat and is likely to impact on Neal’s network. If local clubs cannot secure finance for premises, equipment and day-to-day running costs, they could close – bringing an end to the amalgamation of Tory small state idealism as seen in the Big Society and localised job-hunting services.
Would they be missed? It is far too early to gauge whether they have achieved any success. Neal claims 30% of those who lose their job find another one through friends, family or contacts and his clubs provide the social networking to make this happen.
What is known is that historically, they have not been particularly successful. First opened in 1984 in the North East, a number of studies argued they were of limited value. A 1986 Guardian report into how the scheme was functioning in Dundee found that of the city's 7,100 long-term unemployed, only 147 people had been found places at job clubs and only six people on the wider Job Start scheme had actually found work.
If they fail, or are forced to close their doors, many providers will be expected to pick up the slack they leave behind. The sector has the necessary skills and experience to take over the role, but existing job club clients will be used to a service that mentors, supports and befriend. In some instances volunteers will have given many hours encouraging clients and building their self-worth whilst helping them write CVs, providing transport to interviews, or simply offering a resource to create peer self-help support groups.
These resources are expensive and providers will be hard pushed to match such intense levels of support. If they have to take over the functions of job clubs they will need to think how they will deliver this kind of service. Equally, if job clubs survive and find the funding to continue, providers will need to consider how they will make themselves an attractive and welcome alternative.
Evidence shows only 8% of clients attending programmes run by independent training providers secure full-time, sustainable employment. With statistics like this, it would suggest the jobless would probably be just as successful sat at home writing for jobs whilst watching morning TV. Indeed, this option could save the Government millions whilst offering the unemployed the chance to feel they had some say in their own future.
There has never been any kind of caring and supportive initiative designed to support the jobless and help them achieve the goals they feel are important to them. Many want the chance to work, but current and previous provisions are dominated by ‘targets’ and ‘sales figures’ that simply move the jobless off the unemployment register and into some kind of work – even if it doesn’t suit the client. Equally, others want the chance to retrain, but the current funding structure for contracts means that it is against the best interests of providers to support this option as they will not get paid if the client goes to college.
In short, the system doesn’t work, won’t work and ultimately will collapse!
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Friday, 4 February 2011
Unemployment and the Great British Fob Off!
News that 97 per cent of posts created since the economy came out of recession are of limited hours will come as no shock the welfare to work sector. The statistics mean only 6,000 of the 200,000 jobs to have come up in a year pay a full-time wage.
Of further concern to providers is the fact that evidence showed the top performing provider only achieved 8% sustained job outcomes. The average caseworker will be already aware of this, but it seems the Department of Work and Pensions have chosen to ignore current labour market trends.
There is an increasingly trend emerging amongst employers to offer part-time, or ‘zero-hour’ contracts because there is often no National Insurance to pay on behalf of the employees as usually their earnings are comparatively low.
In addition, firms often do not have to pay overtime or pension contributions, unless the part-timer has worked more hours than a full time colleague. Unscrupulous employers have historically used zero-hours contracts as a means by which employees are only paid for work actually done. For example, a restaurant might employ three staff and not know how busy a particular night was going to be. The employer would therefore have staff 'on call' and unpaid, until it became busy enough to bring them out to serve.
One of the reasons employers have opted for these contracts is because they are worried about low growth levels, increasing inflation and the reluctance of banks to finance projects. This point was emphasized by David Frost, the Director-General of the British Chamber of Commerce, who said:
“Clearly there's a lot of nervousness about the future and companies are hiring people on a short-term basis in case the economy doesn't grow as expected. When there's more confidence companies will convert part-time people into full-time employees.”
This kind of uncertainty will not disappear overnight and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) warned it will take at least two more years before the economy claws back output lost to the crisis of 2008. In the meantime, unemployment will soar this year to a 17-year high of 2.8m - 8.8% of the workforce.
Now, let me draw an analogy. Let us assume you had a car parked outside that you needed for work. Let us also assume that every time you needed the car, it only started and ran 3 times in every 100 – would you continue to run the car? Presumably not. Yet the government adhere to a belief that the Welfare to Work sector offers the unemployed some kind of future salvation.
Clearly this is not the case and evidence shows large numbers are being referred to independent providers (who are paid handsomely for their services), only to be fobbed off with low-grade part-time work. This is hardly a solution and one can only stand in total confusion at Iain Duncan Smith’s professed allegiance to the process. Is it that he sees our future as all being employed part-time? Perhaps he doesn’t care about the unemployed and only wants to massage the statistics? Possibly it is because he sees the vast profits the Welfare to Work sector makes and thinks he can fool us whilst making companies like Serco, A4e, Working Links and others pay low rates of corporation tax.
The system is ineffective, fails to address fundamental problems within our labour market and offers no solutions to the unemployed. Rather than encouraging large corporations to bid for the new Work Programme, the government should be reviewing the entire process of how we fail those who are workless.
Morally, it is what should be done – I won’t hold my breath!
Of further concern to providers is the fact that evidence showed the top performing provider only achieved 8% sustained job outcomes. The average caseworker will be already aware of this, but it seems the Department of Work and Pensions have chosen to ignore current labour market trends.
There is an increasingly trend emerging amongst employers to offer part-time, or ‘zero-hour’ contracts because there is often no National Insurance to pay on behalf of the employees as usually their earnings are comparatively low.
In addition, firms often do not have to pay overtime or pension contributions, unless the part-timer has worked more hours than a full time colleague. Unscrupulous employers have historically used zero-hours contracts as a means by which employees are only paid for work actually done. For example, a restaurant might employ three staff and not know how busy a particular night was going to be. The employer would therefore have staff 'on call' and unpaid, until it became busy enough to bring them out to serve.
One of the reasons employers have opted for these contracts is because they are worried about low growth levels, increasing inflation and the reluctance of banks to finance projects. This point was emphasized by David Frost, the Director-General of the British Chamber of Commerce, who said:
“Clearly there's a lot of nervousness about the future and companies are hiring people on a short-term basis in case the economy doesn't grow as expected. When there's more confidence companies will convert part-time people into full-time employees.”
This kind of uncertainty will not disappear overnight and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) warned it will take at least two more years before the economy claws back output lost to the crisis of 2008. In the meantime, unemployment will soar this year to a 17-year high of 2.8m - 8.8% of the workforce.
Now, let me draw an analogy. Let us assume you had a car parked outside that you needed for work. Let us also assume that every time you needed the car, it only started and ran 3 times in every 100 – would you continue to run the car? Presumably not. Yet the government adhere to a belief that the Welfare to Work sector offers the unemployed some kind of future salvation.
Clearly this is not the case and evidence shows large numbers are being referred to independent providers (who are paid handsomely for their services), only to be fobbed off with low-grade part-time work. This is hardly a solution and one can only stand in total confusion at Iain Duncan Smith’s professed allegiance to the process. Is it that he sees our future as all being employed part-time? Perhaps he doesn’t care about the unemployed and only wants to massage the statistics? Possibly it is because he sees the vast profits the Welfare to Work sector makes and thinks he can fool us whilst making companies like Serco, A4e, Working Links and others pay low rates of corporation tax.
The system is ineffective, fails to address fundamental problems within our labour market and offers no solutions to the unemployed. Rather than encouraging large corporations to bid for the new Work Programme, the government should be reviewing the entire process of how we fail those who are workless.
Morally, it is what should be done – I won’t hold my breath!
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