IDS's welfare reforms aren't perfect, but he's right to be bold

Daniel

On costs: of course costs (of transfers) will increase in the short term if incentives are improved.

On fairness: the 'nuances' of the other benefits would simply be rolled into one benefit. If 'nuances' means eligibility then its hard to see whats lost (do you have children? do you rent? do you earn? are you a couple?). If 'nuances' means entitlement then we will have to wait and see who gains and who loses. The main CSJ proposal had very little losers.

Further, as IDS pointed out on the Today programme this morning, the system will be more responsive to need as it will be much closer to the changes in earnings (no predicted earnings required).

davidk

"A successful welfare reform process should also outline how welfare reform is not simply a technical exercise, but involves redrawing the boundary between the state and individual responsibility."

Nail on head. And that's why this 'audacious' move by the former 'leader' will hit exactly the same buffers that Frank Field's reforms hit. After 13 years of Labour rule, the ideological seed bed for these ideas to even stand a chance of growing in is simply not there.

Nice idea, IDS, but you were given a fools errand. Now, off to the backbenches with you.

Baron

the bold idea for me would be scrapping gradually over 2 years the lot of the transfer payment set-up except for old age and disability pensions.

davidk @ 6.24 gets close to what the likely outcome of the IDS’s reform will be.

Alexis

bold or bald?

Parlow

I don't think this is bold enough. Bold would be a negative income tax and a flat rate of taxation. Simplify tax AND welfare in one shot.

Bob

IDS is right to grasp this nettle. In the Sixties the Labour government knew it had to bring the Trade Unions under control because they were dragging the country down, everybody knew it, but it hadn't the guts to do it. Margaret Thatcher did it instead. New labour knew it had to reform welfare because it was dragging the country down but hadn't the guts to do it. So know it's up to the coalition to do the job before it's too late.

Mycroft

Frank Field's reforms hit Brown's buffers, as far as I remember; and he's not there any longer, notr is much of his reputation.

Widmerpool

How refreshing to read a piece on the Coffee House which is generally supportive of what the Coalition is trying to achieve. Too often IMHO the Spec/Coffee House seems to have an agenda to pander to the Bonehead Backwoodsmen of the Tory Party who deep down would love to see Dave and the Coalition fall.

IDS has had a long time to think about these reforms and it can’t be expected that he gets it 100% right first time.

That said he needs all the support he can get in pushing through unpopular measures with some like the Labour party who will be in whinge mode over them

carefix

More fine words designed to disguise the true motivations of over a decade of Welfare Reform initiatives: The abolition of contributory benefits. This can be gleaned from both the Centre for Social Justices's "Dynamic Benefits" and the
DWPs consultation document 21st Century Welfare which says:

Contributory benefits play an important role in the system. However, reforms will need to consider the balance between contributory benefits and targeting support on those with the lowest incomes.

You see the single benefit replacement for the 51 current benefits is means tested. That is the whole point of these reforms. The reduction in Marginal Tax rates when investigated turns out to be, well, marginal.

The real deal is to ensure no-one who has been responsible and saved or paid years of NI contributions will get a return. They will be punished. Only the feckless (but sensible) who have ensured they have nothing for a rainy day will be rewarded. The all intrusive Nanny State will reign supreme, those who try will be punished those who do not will as ever be rewarded and the welfare culture will become more deeply embedded.

Ian Duncan Smith's real goals are plain to see for those who bother to investigate. Its just a new spin on an old plan and business as usual at the DWP.

Verityred

'Bonehead backwoodsmen of the Tory Party''.

Very good, and to the point. Just like their caveman Labour counterparts, a simmering pot of childishly destructive hasbeens..

StrongholdBarricades

I think what you fail to "see" in your outline of costs is the streamlining of the whole system.

The fact that there will be only one office you have to go to access the services.

How much duplication this removes from the system is then the saving.

I also think that even those considered "too ill to work" should at least turn up at these offices every now and again.

If the DWP actually makes jobs in the communities going forward as a reward for receiving benefit then this could also be beneficial as introducing new skills.

The one reform that I would like to see, after the last recession which hit the qualified sector of the jobs market more is a greater understanding of the role of the Job Centres going forward. Even by it's own research only 1 job in every 10 is ever advertised in the job centre. So is it currently "fit for purpose"?

Iconoclast

No he is not "right to be bold" if that being bold simply equates to *Condeming* (deliberate typo)folk to the scrap heap and increasing poverty as a bi-product..

This narrative of poor bashing is evil and has to be stopped, attempting to *fly* ideas re. 18th century workhouses for the "undeserving poor" is scandalous, but only one part removed from where IDS wants to drive this poorly thought out agenda..

There are 5.2ml on out of work benefits, 8.3ml adults (of working age) considered economically inactive. NuLab only *created* 1mil low paid jobs (mostly going to legal immigrants) in the lifetime of their government underpinned as it was by the bizarre hubris and largesse they helped create.

There are only 400K jobs available in the UK as I type, of which (according to the ONS) only 150K could be considered full time, so what would IDS have those on out of work benefits do; fight to the death for the 'decent' jobs? Fine, what happens to the other 98%? Even beginning to consider weighting benefits to more affluent areas is outrageous, not just due to the gerrymandering accusations which would stick, but the immediate ghettoisation it would create. Perhaps IDS, Cameron, Clegg and Gove need to hop over to Detroit and Baltimore to witness how rapidly some areas can de-generate, perhaps they simply don't care, this could be Newcastle or Liverpool inside ten years if their agenda is unleashed..

This (welfare) is not (just) a social problem it is an economic problem, unless mass employment schemes are created (housing and railway improvement being the only credible legacy programmes) then this Tory/Lib bitter rant at the weakest in society will begin to resemble the most extreme of right wing policy..and nowhere, inside the last 2 months, has anyone in govt. mentioned job creation, not once. As such does this reveal so much in reference to their true beliefs and thinking..?

2trueblue

Well thats grand from the above, lets do nothing like Liebore 'The do nothing party' who spent 13 yrs talking and allowing the system to be 'worked', rathere thatn etting out to work.
What beats me is how does a family get to be housed/rehoused in a property costing £8,000.00p per month? There are a lot of things that are rotten with the system and a start at solving some of them would be welcomed by those of us who have never used the system. It is wrong that a young man can give up work because his partner/wife has had their 2nd child and can't cope and joins the unemployed forever. There are just too many crazy situations that should bot be allowed. WE have to look after the vulnerable and that includes those of us who work hard, pay our way and would never consider 'working the system'.

Iconoclast

2trueblue; do you realise that the Condems will stop tax credits, which have assisted hundreds of thousands of families (who do the "right thing") to thrive over and above simply surviving?

Do you realise that the 1.5ml recently made unemployed (since the onset of the Great Recession) will receive the exact same treatment as those you summarily dismiss with your ill informed brush stroke attacks?

Do you realise that IDS's wife took 18K out of the system by being one of his 'ickle part time office helpers last year? How is that *different* to living off the state?

Do you realise that the Condems have no intention of jump starting employment schemes as proved by their culling of the future jobs fund? This agenda of IDS's is simply blame and misdirection. I ask again, where the hell are the 5.2ml jobs?

Do you realise that welfare spend is in fact a net zero cost? 99% of welfare *doled out* is spent on housing costs, food, energy, travel etc within the month it is handed out and mainly in the local economies. Anyone refusing to accept work is alreay denied benefit, therefore this re-hashed rhetoric is ideological fraud.

Finally do you realise that once all these measures kick in, together with the austerity measures already in place, then indirectly and directly you and the muddled classes will suffer more pain than those at the bottom rung of society? It'll be your house that crashes in value, your investments that burn as interest rates stay at zirp for years, your kids that are faced with the 42% youth unemployent rate of Spain as the greedy baby boomers are kept wet whilst working themselves to death by the Tories in order to ensure they vote for more of the same..?

2trueblue

Iconolast, I have worked as a nurse, CAB advisor, Mental Health act Manager, and in recruitment. Am Fairly familiar with the facts. It does not work, the forms are vastly over-complicated, not user friendly and not even understood by those administering the system. Reform has to start somewhere.
What is your solution? The economics speak for themselves. During Liebores 13yrs. of plenty the kitty was plundered, nothing was saved. Where was the great wealth creating job creating that could now sustain us producing something?

Widmerpool

Verityred
Agreed about Labour has beens!
What do David Davis and Ed Balls have in common? Both are loosers eaten up with class envy.
Floreat David and Nick!

AndyLeeds

I wish IDS well. I doubt he will be able to achieve what he wishes. The problem is the system is so complex it is all but un-reformable. I do believe that the benefits and tax system ought to be intigrated, but to do this the tax system needs radical reform and simplification. The tragedy is that Gordon 'The Moron' Brown could have reformed the tax and benefits systems had he wished. He did not. All he has done is make the situation worse. And that destroys peoples lives.

Ivan Woodhouse

The British Government provides the following financial assistance: -

BENEFIT BRITISH OLD AGE PENSIONER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS / REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
Weekly allowance £100 £250
Weekly Spouse allowance £25 £225
Additional weekly hardship allowance £0 £100

TOTAL YEARLY BENEFIT £6,000 £29,900

If I was a refugee, why would I look for work?

Tim Carpenter LPUK

It is absolutely correct to say that the right purpose has to be decided upon and stuck to.

However, I am not convinced that we have this from IDS.

If you want to go from zero base, "making work pay" is to have no welfare at all. Solved? Well, not really, as that is, when beginning from where we are right now, impractical. So that is not a genuine position, for all the baggage exists.

Then we have the idea of allowing those on benefits to keep some while they work. For how long?

Imagine working alongside someone who has recently started working knowing they get significantly more money than you and will continue to do so. Will the "Universal Credit" be given to the existing low paid? This is a move to a Citizens Basic Income, if so.

The cap on housing benefit was a small and very welcome move but we need more, much more of this. An example would be to not keep increasing benefits to those who, while already on benefits, expand their families. No extra money. No extra housing. That is another dimension to "make work pay". Want more kids? Go to work.

We also need to end social/subsidised housing, for this distorts the markets, makes people beholden to the State and locks them in ghettos where they have to go cap in hand to move. Better to give people one flat benefit and not subsidise rents so people can move without having to re-assess benefits and trade off size and location vs their other needs. Makes them realise that trade offs and incomes are all part of life, you know, the life every taxpayer has to deal with.

* and, unless we are talking about death, there are always two.

Snowman

Ivan Woodhouse @ 12.17

where do the figures come from? Can you quote the source, please

Robert Taggart

Welfare should not be an alternative to work ? But it be thus !
Twenty Seven years of benefits has made us dependent (on the state) and, by default, independent (of work !). Without these handouts what are us scroungers to do ?
Work... how does that work ? Do we have to rise before... 10.00 am ? Do we have to strain our sinews ? Do we have to pay tax for the 'privilege' ?
OoHh, AaHh, UuHh... one feels... ill at ease... any benefits for our condition ? !

Robert

I had an accident in which two hospitals messed up badly, I had a lesion of the spinal cord which made me seriously disabled it turned out five years later they told me I was paraplegic, no bowel function no bladder, last year they told me no more could be done that was it.

Then came for me to claim benefits unlike the lies of Blair, I had to have two medicals none of which were carried out by my GP.

I was told by one Asian doctor in so poor broken English I was OK to work, and I was lucky not to be living in his country, but they sent another doctor to see me who reported back i was severely disabled and likely to be disabled for the rest of my life.

Now I've been told I'm fit to work in a job which would need personal help a carer, the carer would be able to do the work and I could sit in a chair and do nothing, this is true no kidding, after a year the company would then have to pay me a wage and my carer, so you tell me how the hell can I get a Job in a depression, well labour told me that companies have to accept they need to do more for the disabled, they need a social to be conscientious.

Anyone know a company like this if you do please contact me, because I cannot find one..

treborc

One comment those to disabled to work should turn up at the office every now and again.

Well what about the medicals and the medical checks we have, PCA these are medical checks each and every disabled person gets you have to have 15 points, otherwise your not disabled.

Now look lets not beat around the bush if your like me it become silly turning up for a medical check which costs £1,300 paid to a private company. Hello sir it says here you have no legs, your bowel and Bladder do not work is that the same yes, have you had your new medical yes has your legs grown back nope is your bowel and bladder now fixed nope, Thank you for coming.

But thats what happens of course the company made 1.7 billion in profits last year all from tax payers money.

So the Tories said when in office (1991) look if a person has no legs, has a spinal injury which is so severe it's never going to get better we can save billions by passing them as disabled for life.

So along comes Blair and says it's wrong for no medicals these people might get better, so he restarts the medicals, his mate at the private firm is jumping up and down, his company made £1.7 billion profits last year, I go down the chap says has your legs grown back! nope, are your bowel and bladder still not working nope can you prove that, OK here is the tube into the bag attached to my leg, ah yes see you next year tata.

Cost of the medical which took ten minutes £1.700. will my legs ever grow back or work , nope because I'm paraplegic