Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[Thirteen]

Programmes like Benefits Street in the 2010s and looking further back Wife Swap in 2004 which had an participant who and her partners lived entirely on benefits so the demonisation of people not working and dependent on the state has been a thing for decades.

I'm not sure if there is a solution to tackle it without ending up pushing people further in poverty but at the same time, I'm not a fan of Universal Basic Income because it would encourage people who are work shy and spend their days doing nothing to continue not to try and work.

 

[SteveM70]

Programmes like Benefits Street in the 2010s and looking further back Wife Swap in 2004 which had an participant who and her partners lived entirely on benefits so the demonisation of people not working and dependent on the state has been a thing for decades.

I'm not sure if there is a solution to tackle it without ending up pushing people further in poverty but at the same time, I'm not a fan of Universal Basic Income because it would encourage people who are work shy and spend their days doing nothing to continue not to try and work.

Yes, and its nothing new.

I remember a piece on the Radio 4 Today programme back in the 1990s when Michael Howard was Home Secretary. The producers had spent some time with a young single mother in Bradford, and she'd written her shopping list, walked round the city pricing stuff up at every supermarket she could get to, then retracing her steps buying each item she needed at the cheapest location to minimise her spend. It took almost half a day. The presenter asked Howard for his views on this and whether money should be quite that tight for someone in the woman's situation. His first sentence was "that is a woman embarking on a life on the benefits system"

Nothing like a good bit of prejudice

 

[Class 317]

With AI and automation likely to progressively reduce the amount of working hours required in the economy I don't really understand the focus on getting more people back into work and I'm convinced it's mainly a political thing to attack the so called workshy. Yes we have shortages in certain areas but mainly that's caused by a return of some skilled workers to the EU caused by both Brexit and Covid.

Also since COVID many people have re-evaluated what's important to them and have left the workforce to spend more time doing things that are important to them. Some have taken early retirement, gone part time or reduced their hours. Personally I see this as a good thing.

 

[nw1]

Yes when i heard about the EU proposal i thought, "Not now!" but luckily Labour didn't slip on the banana skin...

It shows how right-wing this country has become when a proposal which only goes a small way to restoring the rights we enjoyed for 50 years is now seen as unacceptably radical.

Meanwhile, Sunak is proposing to cut off benefits if you don't manage to find a job within a year, apparently. That to me seems radical-right but evidently it isn't.

He's just going for the same tired old war on benefits that has been enacted since Tebbit and Lilley. Picking on people on benefits because they're easy targets and probably unlikely to vote Tory.
I detested this behaviour in 1992, and I detest it with the same passion now.

 

[dangie]

Also since COVID many people have re-evaluated what's important to them and have left the workforce to spend more time doing things that are important to them. Some have taken early retirement, gone part time or reduced their hours. Personally I see this as a good thing.

This is absolutely fine, but people need to have an income to live. This generally boils down to earning an income or being given an income.

For all of us to live we need others to work (I’m retired so this includes me as well).

 

[nw1]

With AI and automation likely to progressively reduce the amount of working hours required in the economy I don't really understand the focus on getting more people back into work and I'm convinced it's mainly a political thing to attack the so called workshy. Yes we have shortages in certain areas but mainly that's caused by a return of some skilled workers to the EU caused by both Brexit and Covid.

I agree that it is an attack on those on benefits (as I have said) but by the same token, I also believe we need strong and tough legislation to minimise the risk of AI forcing large numbers of people into involuntary unemployment and possible poverty.

This would be a far more positive step than just attacking the unemployed with the same tired old Lilleyite nonsense.

The DWP has some really great staff, but the department has been stripped to the bone so much in recent years that those who've had the stomach to stick around are finding themselves under increasing pressure to get through their workload. The department also has some really awful staff who have zero empathy towards the people they have to deal with on a daily basis and, quite frankly, should not be employed in a role that involves dealing with the public; there are one or two who I'd quite happily have suspended on the spot if I'd been in charge.

Those who haven't been through the system will never understand and I honestly hope you never have to.

This reminds me of my experiences when I was temporarily unemployed for a month or two after university (this was many years ago now, in the era of Lilley as social security secretary).
The member of staff was rude and discourteous and singularly unhelpful. They didn't want to help, you just got the impression that they looked down on you.

Lilley would have loved that particular member of staff though, I'm sure.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Reading with the PM said this plan to stop doctors issuing fit notes will be implemented if the Conservatives win the next general election.

Considering all the concerns about the NHS being overburdened resulting in long waiting times for GP appointments, one might think it was a good idea to relieve GPs of the burden of issuing fit notes so they can spend more time doing their job of healing people. Besides, GPs are trained to understand health, not employment practices: They might be able to assess what kinds of movement and levels of exertion etc. a person is and isn't capable of, but they aren't trained to know what things might or might not be required for working at a given job and therefore what places someone might be able to work at.

If we step away from the hysteria and look at what Sunak actually said (there's a video of a portion of his speech here), it's pretty clear that what he wants to do is move away from a culture of, This person has a long term condition therefore we'll write them off as completely unable to work, to, This person has a long term condition, so let's figure out what kind of jobs they could do with that condition and help them into a suitable job. I really don't understand why anyone would object to that, although I appreciate there's a huge amount of devil in the detail of how you implement it, and that the Government's record in this kind of thing has been pretty abysmal up to now.

Perhaps I might offer an illustrative example of how it works in reality should someone which to "choose" not to work due to ill-health?

Thanks, that long explanation is informative. Reading through it, it seems to me quite reasonable that there is a process of checking whether a person is genuinely unable to work. Reading through your description, it looks to me like the weak points are (1) that it relies heavily on a person claiming what things they can and can't do, so you're relying on how honest a person is about that, and (2) as you describe it, the process seems to be aimed primarily at assessing whether a person should be eligible for UC and not have to look for work, whereas I'd have expected a system that's fairer and doesn't write people off to be based more around, figuring out what work someone could do that's consistent with their conditions, and then working with employers to find a way to enable that person to work. From what I've seen of Rishi Sunak's speech, that seems to be roughly what he's trying to move towards.

So you've gone from working down to £393.45 per month to live on (food, gas, electric, water, clothes, etc etc) and £548.51 per month to pay your rent. Not sure I'd give up work lightly for just that.

That will depend a lot on a person's lifestyle and in particular how much they value money vs free time. Someone who values having a materially comfortable life is not going to go for that, but off the top of my head I know of a couple of people who have freely chosen to live off benefits because that lifestyle suits them more than working.

 

[Enthusiast]

Also since COVID many people have re-evaluated what's important to them and have left the workforce to spend more time doing things that are important to them. Some have taken early retirement, gone part time or reduced their hours. Personally I see this as a good thing.

I take it that having discovered what's important to them and gone part time or reduced their hours, they will still need lorry drivers to deliver what they need to the shops, shop assistants to sell those goods to them, medics to cure them of their ills, plumbers and electricians to fix faults in their houses, teachers to educate their children, refuse collectors to empty their bins. And I almost forgot - since they will enjoy an increase in the time they have to do what's important to them, perhaps they will also need hoteliers and their staff to run hotels in which they can take a well-earned break as well as bus and train drivers to take them there. Hopefully the evaluations undertaken by the people doing those jobs will have produced different results, otherwise we're all stuffed.

With AI and automation likely to progressively reduce the amount of working hours required in the economy I don't really understand the focus on getting more people back into work and I'm convinced it's mainly a political thin to attack the so called workshy.

AI and automation are hardly likely to make significant inroads to the types of occupation I mentioned above. There seems to be a belief in this country - especially since Covid - that the entire workforce works at a computer (either in an office or with it propped up against the toaster in their kitchen). They don't. The people you speak of who have been busy re-evaluating their lives are predominantly of that ilk. They can work at home and they can adjust their hours. Much of the rest of the workforce cannot and those who can might find their lives a little more troublesome (with many of them seemingly having enough problems coping as it is) if everybody did what they did.

 

[edwin_m]

Considering all the concerns about the NHS being overburdened resulting in long waiting times for GP appointments, one might think it was a good idea to relieve GPs of the burden of issuing fit notes so they can spend more time doing their job of healing people. Besides, GPs are trained to understand health, not employment practices: They might be able to assess what kinds of movement and levels of exertion etc. a person is and isn't capable of, but they aren't trained to know what things might or might not be required for working at a given job and therefore what places someone might be able to work at.

The question of whether someone is fit to work is essentially the same question as diagnosis of the illness, so a separate assessor would be duplicating part of the GP role rather than reducing it. It might even make GP workload worse, as there would have to be some process of the GP notifying the assessor of the medical details.

I can't see that an assessor is going to be any better than a GP at understanding suitability for particular kinds of work - in fact if the assessor has minimal training they will be worse. The one best placed to understand conditions at work is the employer, and the assessor would have to spend a lot of time per patient to get the specific knowledge of their workplace. So it seems to me unlikely that this proposed change will have any benefit over the current system where (as I understand it) the GP defines in broad terms the type of work the patient is able to do, and the employer must consider this in deciding how to deploy them.

 

[Ediswan]

The nearest thing I can think of is PIP assessments. Those do not have a good repututaion for speed, convenience, or accuracy. It could become another outsourcing gravy train.

 

[The Ham]

I agree that it is an attack on those on benefits (as I have said) but by the same token, I also believe we need strong and tough legislation to minimise the risk of AI forcing large numbers of people into involuntary unemployment and possible poverty.

AI isn't likely to be as big an issue in this country as many fear. For starters we have a rapidly aging population (there's now more over 80 year olds than under 18's), which is likely to lead to a shortage of people in the workforce for a given population size (whilst the workforce may not shrink by very much, if the overall population is growing than the number of people working per million people will be shrinking). However that's only one aspect, with more older people there's a need for more people to care for them (including a greater need for medical staff).

There's likely to be a change in what people do, but that's always been the case.

AI is likely to be not all that different to spreadsheets or the loom in terms of impact on the workforce, people will do things differently, there maybe a shift in what people do, but ultimately there will still be jobs which need doing, yes with fewer staff. What's happened to the rings of typing pools? They no longer exist, yet there's now more women in work than there was when they existed.

Likewise the advent of trains being run with as few as one person in board hasn't lead to massive amounts of people but in work.

The deindustrialization of the UK did happen too quickly, which did cause some issues, however they tended to be limited in duration (although some areas still are haunted by the impacts, it's generally the car that the impact is reducing as time goes by), whilst that duration can be decades long, it's less likely that office job loses would be quite as impactful.

For example, I use CAD based programs to design roads, the reality is that I could draw most things people want in a CAD based program. That could be Roads, things to be 3D printed, houses, games, etc. However I could also use that computer skill to learn a new system and do something else.

The reality is, actually a lot of what I do isn't as straightforward as a road from A to B (motorway design is fairly boarng and could be done by AI), but rather the complexity of how to fit a new junction into a unique space with the need to balance a number of factors which may not be easy to define and so may not be as easy for AI to do.

There's likely to be a reduction in the need for staff, however to get to zero it's unlikely quickly.

This reminds me of my experiences when I was temporarily unemployed for a month or two after university (this was many years ago now, in the era of Lilley as social security secretary).
The member of staff was rude and discourteous and singularly unhelpful. They didn't want to help, you just got the impression that they looked down on you.

My wife had a similar experience, although she had to help the member of staff use their computer.

 

[Class 317]

This is absolutely fine, but people need to have an income to live. This generally boils down to earning an income or being given an income.

For all of us to live we need others to work (I’m retired so this includes me as well).

Those choosing a lower working week or early retirement are accepting their incomes will be lower for more free time.

In reply to another post they are not all people at laptops and include a shop assistant and teacher. They have just worked out that higher incomes are not everything and their is more to life than working to achieve a bigger house or owning more stuff.

I'm not sure why so many people are so against anyone who has chosen to work and earn less to live happier.

 

[david1212]

Plus, if I am quite honest, I don't think people like Sunak understand mental health issues enough. He was basically born with a silver spoon in his mouth in more ways than one - not just financial. So it's easy for him to pontificate.

And that perhaps is where everyone's pinning it back to Sunak's wealth. As he keeps pointing out whenever he can, he is the son of a GP and a pharmacist. His top tier education helped him become obscenely wealthy in his own right and married into even greater wealth. There is zero chance he'll ever have to interact with the DWP or NHS as a service user (especially if he moves back to the US as is assumed). If he needed mental or indeed any sort of health care, he can literally have the best money can buy. He will never have to worry about the bills or making ends meet at the end of the month. He won't ever have to worry about losing his job - at least once he's turfed out of No10.

Like they say, money doesn't buy happiness, but it absolutely helps.

Indeed. While other senior government members have nothing like Sunak's wealth will any ever need to interact with the DWP or NHS as a service user either later in life?

'including removing the right to get a sick note from a GP'
How in the world will that ever work, never mind be accepted by employers.
.....

You can tell these are the words of a man who has no concept of the real world, of life in a working situation and waited longer than a week for routine healthcare.

My first thought too. OK for something long term or complicated not your GP but certainly a medical professional.

One thing that would help is getting those who need surgery treated soon after diagnosis so sooner back to work and off benefits but regardless of which party/parties form the next government I don't see that happening.

Based on the current opinion pools it's probably not going to happen. Unfortunately (Fortrose) for those who do suffer from anxiety and depression today's speech could well make their condition worse especially anxieties about the future.

I agree.


I'm not gong to quote @GusB 's post but it covers many of the issues.

It is all very well determining what a person can do with the right training but first the training actually has to be available and second there has to be an vacant position for the retrained person to take up.

For detailed discussion on another thread but how many of the roles where there are now vacancies particularly hands on engineering, nursing and care can be filled by someone currently deemed unfit for work after retraining? Rather jobs that they may be able to do e.g. back room banking & finance, typing pools are far fewer or do not exist at all compared to 30+ years ago.

 

[najaB]

What has Sunak's wealth got to do with mental health issues? Do you imagine that it's impossible for someone wealthy or 'privileged' to have mental health issues?

No. But it's a hell of a lot easier to access quality healthcare when you've got half a billion in your bank account than if you don't know if you'll earn enough this week to pay for your heating and feed your kids.

 

[DustyBin]

Those choosing a lower working week or early retirement are accepting their incomes will be lower for more free time.

In reply to another post they are not all people at laptops and include a shop assistant and teacher. They have just worked out that higher incomes are not everything and their is more to life than working to achieve a bigger house or owning more stuff.

I'm not sure why so many people are so against anyone who has chosen to work and earn less to live happier.

I don’t think people are against them, as long as they are self-financing this life choice.

Incidentally, thank you @ainsworth74 and @GusB for your informative posts. Over the years I’ve encountered a number of individuals who genuinely were “gaming” the system, so I tend to take a fairly cynical view whilst accepting that there are genuine cases. What I absolutely agree with is how difficult it can be for some people to get into (or back into) work even when they want to. I’ve helped a couple of people fairly recently who’ve been in this position, and it was an eye opener to be honest. Unless you’ve been in that position it’s probably difficult to understand the challenges; some of it may seem trivial (it did to me!) but to the individuals involved it’s anything but.

 

[SynthD]

A 40% increase in five years is significant.

When the government debt goes up and they say “but covid”, we’re supposed to accept that. When the number of people suffering long term health complications goes up, with many diagnoses of long covid, the government don’t accept that. I don’t like this double standard. A social safety net shouldn’t be dependent on the lack of a recent pandemic, or politicians with poor morals.

 

[nw1]

When the government debt goes up and they say “but covid”, we’re supposed to accept that. When the number of people suffering long term health complications goes up, with many diagnoses of long covid, the government don’t accept that.

I'd say more serious than long Covid are the long term mental health problems that have occurred as an after effect of Covid and its consequences, plus the overly-fast and overly-radical changes to society since (e.g more WFH = more isolation).

Yet Sunak and co appear to not want to acknowledge that these mental health problems exist. "Man/woman up" is doubtless the Tory attitude - as it always has been. The Tories in general seem to have always had difficulty understanding those outside the stereotypical Mr/Ms Average.

 

[birchesgreen]

Help for disabled people in England and Wales to get jobs is axed amid benefits crackdown

Closure of Work and Health Programme comes hard on heels of Rishi Sunak’s bid to end the UK’s supposed ‘sicknote’ culture

www.theguardian.com

The £100m Work and Health Programme, operating in England and Wales, will end in the autumn, providers have been told, at the same time that Rishi Sunak wants to cut benefits for 420,000 sick and disabled people in an attempt to force them into work – a move that charities say would instead leave people destitute.

The blow to disabled people comes after the prime minister unveiled a plan to hand power to officials with no medical training to decide whether an employee is sick, raising the possibility that decisions about workers’ health will be taken to hit targets rather than on clinical need.

Charities condemned Sunak’s plans as a “full-on assault on disabled people” last week, after he announced a consultation on the future of the personal independence payment (PIP), which helps cover the extra costs of living with a disability or ill health.

The prime minister wants to cut the disability welfare budget of £69bn a year, amid rising levels of sickness. The charitable Health Foundation said last week that by 2040 health inequalities meant that 3.7 million adults, many in deprived areas, would be living with a major illness such as type 2 diabetes, chronic pain or depression.

Sunak said that Britain had a “sicknote culture” and blamed the problem of “young people … parked on welfare”, although the majority of people receiving statutory sick pay are women over 50 working part-time, according to the Resolution Foundation.

Well isn't that a surprise.

 

[Typhoon]

Help for disabled people in England and Wales to get jobs is axed amid benefits crackdown

Closure of Work and Health Programme comes hard on heels of Rishi Sunak’s bid to end the UK’s supposed ‘sicknote’ culture

www.theguardian.com

Well isn't that a surprise.

I have come across a fair few people with differing kinds of disabilities (not always obvious) who would dearly want to work but are never given a chance, they apply for job after job but never get to the interview stage and rarely receive even a rejection letter. Although there are dozens of jobs out there (I had a look locally) most require skills that many (including myself - and I have a range of quals - not all academic) don't possess. I could apply for just one of the first twenty I looked at - shop assistant. By and large, those most suited to these vacancies will already be in work!!

Incidentally, thank you @ainsworth74 and @GusB for your informative posts. Over the years I’ve encountered a number of individuals who genuinely were “gaming” the system, so I tend to take a fairly cynical view whilst accepting that there are genuine cases. What I absolutely agree with is how difficult it can be for some people to get into (or back into) work even when they want to. I’ve helped a couple of people fairly recently who’ve been in this position, and it was an eye opener to be honest. Unless you’ve been in that position it’s probably difficult to understand the challenges; some of it may seem trivial (it did to me!) but to the individuals involved it’s anything but.

Likewise, but as far as I can see the Job Centre staff seem to leave them alone (as being 'too hard'), it is easier to pressurise the willing but what they need is encouragement, they (usually) are making an effort, they need support, often individual support. Instead their confidence is just given a battering.
(I agree with your comments about previous posts - it shows the value of the Forum - informative rather than opinionated.)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

When the government debt goes up and they say “but covid”, we’re supposed to accept that. When the number of people suffering long term health complications goes up, with many diagnoses of long covid, the government don’t accept that. I don’t like this double standard. A social safety net shouldn’t be dependent on the lack of a recent pandemic, or politicians with poor morals.

I don't think that's the case. No-one is denying that long Covid is likely to have contributed at least somewhat to an increase in the number of people off sick during and immediately following Covid. But the problem with blaming it all on Covid is, the Covid crisis was rapidly ending with most of the population vaccinated 3 years ago, yet the numbers of people leaving the workforce because of sickness is still increasing today. If long Covid was the problem, you expect the numbers by now to have stabilised or started going down as people recover.

I have come across a fair few people with differing kinds of disabilities (not always obvious) who would dearly want to work but are never given a chance, they apply for job after job but never get to the interview stage and rarely receive even a rejection letter.

To be fair, never getting to the interview stage or getting any response from the prospective employer happens a lot to people who are healthy and have no disability too. But I agree it's going to be a lot harder for people with a disability. I get the impression that one thing that's missing is Government support for employers to employ people who need special provision due to sickness or disability. We hear a lot about the Government encouraging/requiring people to look for work, but what is also needed is, once someone has decided on what job they want, for the Government to reach out to employers and figure out what support is required to make it worth the employer's while employing that non-able-bodied person. And for employers to therefore be aware that, if they offer a job to someone sick or disabled, they will get that support.

 

[YorkRailFan]

BREAKING: Mark Menzies has resigned as a Tory MP and will not stand again

https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1782052689720807763?t=L1tyQEi7mAl-VhOK5ab7hw&s=19

Another one out the door. Not surprising after his scandal.

 

[Typhoon]

To be fair, never getting to the interview stage or getting any response from the prospective employer happens a lot to people who are healthy and have no disability too. But I agree it's going to be a lot harder for people with a disability. I get the impression that one thing that's missing is Government support for employers to employ people who need special provision due to sickness or disability. We hear a lot about the Government encouraging/requiring people to look for work, but what is also needed is, once someone has decided on what job they want, for the Government to reach out to employers and figure out what support is required to make it worth the employer's while employing that non-able-bodied person. And for employers to therefore be aware that, if they offer a job to someone sick or disabled, they will get that support.

True, but it would make a difference to the job-seeker (I recognise it is unlikely owing to the number of applicants). It goes back to them losing motivation - and is linked with your very valid point about 'support'. It is often all stick and no carrot. What is especially irritating, is those who have issues that make them less obviously employable are more likely to be loyal to whoever offers them employment, rather than be putting an application in elsewhere for the opportunity of a pay rise.

 

[SynthD]

I don't think that's the case. No-one is denying that long Covid is likely to have contributed at least somewhat to an increase in the number of people off sick during and immediately following Covid. But the problem with blaming it all on Covid is, the Covid crisis was rapidly ending with most of the population vaccinated 3 years ago, yet the numbers of people leaving the workforce because of sickness is still increasing today. If long Covid was the problem, you expect the numbers by now to have stabilised or started going down as people recover.

That is still similar to the national debt. It is acceptable that it’s rising now in regular times, even though during the covid period it rose faster.

 

[najaB]

That is still similar to the national debt. It is acceptable that it’s rising now in regular times, even though during the covid period it rose faster.

Indeed. While many people think that Covid went away with vaccination, we were still seeing 1,000+ new cases per day over the winter.

 

[Busaholic]

I presume these non-GP assessors will work for a company like Capita?

After my wife died I was entitled to receive as her widower most of the private pension she had built up. Like many such schemes, it was managed by Capita. The initial process of transferring it to me went well but then weeks went by. Telephone calls to Capita were answered by individuals 'working from home' (a different one each time) who, in-between both dogs and screaming kids providing background noise, provided ever-more-unbelievable rubbish excuses for the inactivity. The last person I spoke to was quite rude when I expressed frustration. In the end I had to write to the pension scheme's Trustees to make a formal complaint, a difficult job as the employer had ceased to exist as a separate unit in 1989. It did seem to do the job, because despite never receiving a reply, a slew of information came through within about ten days with a backdated payment into my bank account a couple of weeks later, minus 50% emergency tax!

This was 2022, so Covid central, by the way.

 

[najaB]

Telephone calls to Capita were answered by individuals 'working from home' (a different one each time) who, in-between both dogs and screaming kids providing background noise, provided ever-more-unbelievable rubbish excuses for the inactivity.

Working from home or not, that sounds like an issue with company standards. There's zero excuse for employees just making stuff up.

 

[david1212]

... Over the years I’ve encountered a number of individuals who genuinely were “gaming” the system, so I tend to take a fairly cynical view whilst accepting that there are genuine cases.

Those “gaming” the system need to be found out but all who are genuine need to know they are not at risk of loosing benefits and forced into the path of being classed as jobseekers. Easily said but much harder to do.

I have come across a fair few people with differing kinds of disabilities (not always obvious) who would dearly want to work but are never given a chance, they apply for job after job but never get to the interview stage and rarely receive even a rejection letter.

Support can be available but on the other side of the fence the employers have to take time arranging / managing this on addition to seeing the applicant potentially as at least one of
- a risk e.g. more likely to have poorer attendance / a higher number of sick days
- a cost e.g. less efficient
- the possibility of having to deal with disability discrimination issues.
Only if a lack of other applicants in reality are they likely to consider someone within this group. Going a step further if unaware before interview once they find out a reason why unsuitable that can not be classed as disability discrimination will be given.

 

[DustyBin]

Likewise, but as far as I can see the Job Centre staff seem to leave them alone (as being 'too hard'), it is easier to pressurise the willing but what they need is encouragement, they (usually) are making an effort, they need support, often individual support. Instead their confidence is just given a battering.
(I agree with your comments about previous posts - it shows the value of the Forum - informative rather than opinionated.)

You’re probably correct in regard to people who are abusing the system being too difficult to deal with; I’m sure said individuals know how to play the game too!

I completely agree with you regarding confidence, in my experience this is absolutely key. I’ve met people who consider themselves unemployable as in their mind they have nothing to offer, when in fact they do. The whole process of applying for a job is extremely daunting for them; they need guidance (often individual as you say) and encouragement, both of which can be in short supply seemingly.

Those “gaming” the system need to be found out but all who are genuine need to know they are not at risk of loosing benefits and forced into the path of being classed as jobseekers. Easily said but much harder to do.

I agree; it is difficult as you say.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I agree; it is difficult as you say.

Yep. The problem is, you don't have perfect knowledge, so it's always going to be impossible to distinguish precisely who is and isn't genuinely sick and in need of support. And there's also going to be people who fall into both camps simultaneously: People who genuinely have some disability or sickness, but who exaggerate it in order to get more support than they would otherwise have done. In fact if the system is a binary one in which you either qualify for UC and to not have to look for work or you don't, then that increases the temptation for people to exaggerate in order to make sure they end up on the 'right' side of that line.

So you really have an unpleasant choice. The more you err on the side of, making sure no-one games the system, the more you risk unfairly mis-categorising some people who are genuinely ill. On the other hand, if you err strongly towards, making sure you don't mistakenly deny support to people who need it, that inevitably means you'll end up not detecting lots of people gaming the system: Over time that can become a huge problem because human nature being what it is, if people discover that it's easy to game the system, that will gradually tempt more and more people to do so until the problem becomes endemic - which probably goes some way to explaining why successive Governments have prioritised adding lots of tests with the aim of making the system hard to game, even though that often ends up looking unfair towards people genuinely in need.

Not an easy problem to solve!

 

[nw1]

Help for disabled people in England and Wales to get jobs is axed amid benefits crackdown

Closure of Work and Health Programme comes hard on heels of Rishi Sunak’s bid to end the UK’s supposed ‘sicknote’ culture

www.theguardian.com

Well isn't that a surprise.

Is Sunak trying to capture the title of "worst prime minister since the war" from Truss? At this rate, he will succeed before the election.