Comments on: Not work and pensions

By: B.Lawrence

B.Lawrence — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:27:22 +0000

How about motivating your staff by telling them they are paid,by taxpayers, to do a job and if they can’t hack it there are over 2 million on the dole some of whom would be glad to swap positions with them.

Why are they paid a bonus they don’t generate any income for the state.

By: Mike Stallard

Mike Stallard — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:47:49 +0000

When I was on the dole myself, for most of the 1990s, the real problem was that nobody gave a monkey’s.
You soon learned how to work the system – it didn’t take much intelligence to go to the soft bureaucrat and lie through your teeth. It was also nice to wave a paycheck in their faces (not literally) when I did get back to being a teacher again.
We also had training done by people who were themselves on the dole. That was excellent. I learned how to work a computer, how to start up and ruin a small business, and how to go about getting a job.
It was the attitude (see above) that was the killer. Perhaps – mad idea? – the Churches could do something positive at last in parallel with the sacred state? They are, after all, always talking about the poor and love and so on??

By: alan jutson

alan jutson — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 07:33:30 +0000

Rob

Yes your point about going from Contribution based to income based Jobseekers allowance can be verified by our family member who is also unfortunate enough to be out of work.

System seems crazy, in addition the Department then writes to the Local Authority to tell them that Jobseekers allowance has ended for the claimant, so Local Authority then cut off the Council Tax benefit reduction, so a reclaim for that is neccessary as well.

More form filling for both.

By: Adrian Peirson

Adrian Peirson — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:37:53 +0000

Maybe they are thinking that if they really mess things up we might say, why not do away with Westminster and just let Brussels run things.

Nothing happens by accident, I have a better idea, lets, withdraw from the EU and run with a severely diminished state sector.
Upholding Common Law, not sneakily imposing statutues ( contracts ) upon us.

Part 1 of 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0IM7Hobd_k

http://www.fmotl.com

http://www.tpuc.org

Part 1 of 11
http://tinyurl.com/mpbjz6

By: John Moss

John Moss — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:32:10 +0000

There are simply too many benefits.

On the DWP website, you can find reference to over 50 separate schemes under which welfare assistance can be sought.

Professional staff making a personal judgement against tightly defined criteria could set a personal assistance rate for each claimant.

It is estimated that there are 10m pensioners and 7m out of work. if they each had to “re-apply” once every six months, that would mean 34m cases a year. With 100,000 staff, that is 340 cases per staff member. If half were employed on this, that would mean 680 per staff member. With 200 working days in the year, that is less than 4 cases per day.

How hard is that?

By: Adrian Peirson

Adrian Peirson — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:26:54 +0000

Of course they want to cut the Armed Forces expenditure, they are after setting up an EU Army.
We are an oppressed nation and people under foreign occupation, being destroyed from within.

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:58:20 +0000

Thats justr shocking statistics on error rates. It is so clear over the years that the Public Sector now is so far behind the private sector it has no right to exist but I know it has to. It is not fit for purpose, it is from a different era and the world has moved on, it moves fast and quick to change and we have a public service that may as well be from the industrial revolution but I recon they were more efficient.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:52:43 +0000

Being recently unemployed myself I am all too aware of some the DWP’s shortcomings. Some streamlining of processes could be implemented. For example, when switching from Contributions based Jobseekers Allowance to Income based why is it necessary to complete a new claim booklet again? As my circumstances had not changed would it not be more efficient to sign to the effect that my circumstances had not changed and then switch my claim over to income based? Apparently not. I had to complete another new claim booklet, have it checked by a member of staff at jobcentreplus and then they sent it off to be processed. So that’s unnecessary paperwork creating an additional task for at least two members of staff to complete and leaving me having to wait a further week for my payment.

Also, pointless group sessions where staff tell claimants about all the fantastic jobs available in the area and try to see if people know how to apply for jobs is one of the government’s daft schemes ‘to help people in the downturn’. Admittedly, some people might need help in constructing a CV or writing cover letters to an employer but for the rest of us it is an unnecessary aggravation. There were 8 people who attended the session I went to and that required 3 members of staff for the hour which is remarkable. Judging from the mood of the other attendees nobody felt it was a beneficial use of time or money. Instead of these pointless schemes why does the government not offer some grants to businesses to take on new employees? This would be of far better benefit to the economy as a whole and the unemployed in particular.

By: Brian E.

Brian E. — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:01:37 +0000

Seems an enormous staff!
If you assume that half the population are out of work or on pension, that is around 30 million, probably a high guesstimate as it doesn’t include children. Divide this by 100,000 and that’s an average of 300 persons per employee.
Even allowing for the long civil service holidays and high sickness rate, that’s only about one and a half persons per day per employee.
Maybe someone needs to talk to an insurance company to find out how many people they need to employ per pension paid.

By: Robert Eve

Robert Eve — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:53:59 +0000

I thought sickness days were mandatory in the public sector.