Welfare state presides over 'culture of fear', charities say
New figures presented to benefits inquiry expected to show record numbers of claimants have had cash withheld
New figures presented to benefits inquiry expected to show record numbers of claimants have had cash withheld....
Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions is presiding over "a culture of fear" in which jobseekers are set unrealistic targets to find work – or risk their benefits being taken away, leading charities have told an official inquiry.
Evidence suggests single parents are being told they must apply for full time jobs to continue receiving jobseeker’s allowance. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Continue reading at
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/18/welfare-state-jobs-inquiry-culture-fear
Policy-based evidence gathering, and evidence-based policy making and critique
Swheatie writes: IDS is interested in policy-based evidence-gathering. The sort that led an investment banker turned 'welfare reform adviser' named David Freud to pronounce in February 2008:
If you want a recipe for getting people on to IB, we've got it: you get more money and you don't get hassled. You can sit there for the rest of your life. And it's ludicrous that the disability tests are done by people's own GPs - they've got a classic conflict of interest and they're frightened of legal action."In fact at the very time that David Freud was speaking in 2008, it was a private company that conducted the Incapacity Benefit Tests for government — and hundreds of thousands even then were wrongly denied the benefit, and won it on appeal.
Under his system, the market will decide who should receive benefit and who should go out to work. "The private sector will have to start making assessments about who they can get back into work at what cost....
Kate Belgrave, on the other hand, is very interested in evidence-based policy making and critique to the point of attending Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group meetings and much more. Kate writes:
The jobcentre reports* are proving popular and I think it's v important to keep letting people know what people are having to deal with. You probably saw this:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/18/welfare-state-jobs-inquiry-culture-fear
- exactly what you've been talking about.
* See
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2014/02/four-people-talk-about-sanctions-and-the-pointlessness-of-jobcentres/
and
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2014/02/more-jsa-stories-from-jobcentres-its-impossible-youre-trapped/
Swheatie
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