Firstly, taken on several new clients in recent days and I know many of my clients read this blog so I just wanted to say 'Hi' to all my new clients around the country - it is always lovely to pick up new clients and I look forward to working with you in coming weeks, months and years.
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This week is the Tory party conference in Manchester and one of the flag pole policies reported in the media today has been the proposal to force Job Seekers Allowance claimants to work for 30 hours a week or lose their benefits. This presumably would be in community style work situations : feeding the elderly, picking up litter, painting out graffiti and so forth. Several thoughts strike me about this suggestion.
Who is going out police the work gangs of hundreds of thousands of JSA claimants as they pour out of Jo Centres to blitz the British countryside ?
Is there enough litter for them to pick up ? Or should we let them pick up leaves in the Autumn too.
Where will they go for lunch, who is going brew all the tea when they have a break and if they get interviews for an actual paid job who will deliver dinner to grannies in their absence.
Would the elderly want a 19 year old job seeker in their council house painting their kitchen or indeed what are all the council litter and leaf technicians and painters and decorators going to do when they are put immediately of out of a job when this plan is implemented ? Well the answer is simple of course - they will become JSA claimants and be required by law to do their old job for free in order to receive £70 a week in state benefits - oh the irony - this could slash council tax budgets by tens of millions of pounds. In fact if we get JSA claimants to administer council offices more generally we could end up with the entire local government bureaucracy running itself with every 'staff' member paid £70 per week by central government and council tax then falls to virtually nil. Smashing !
Broadly (in all seriousness) however I am in favour of driving accountability for those on benefits - I work for myself and if I don't work I literally don't earn and would not dream of using the benefit system but understand the need for it as a fallback. I'm not sure though that this particular Tory measure is the one to sort out those 'disinclined' to work for a living.
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Last thing, the latest episode of my medical insurance podcast will go live tomorrow morning - you can find it on iTunes - just search for PMICast or visit www.pmicast.podbean.com
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