National Society for Prevention of Cruely to Children and 'Crown Immunity' over Department for Work & Pensions neglect

This blog post is currently a 'work-in-progress'

KUWG members heard a talk this week about the complexities of the Conservative Government's 'Universal Credit' (UC) that is scheduled to sweep over the nation by 2022, taking in Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit recipients as 'sanctions fodder' along the way. (Under UC, if you are deemed, say, to have not tried hard enough to increase your income sufficiently to the point that you don't have to receive components of UC, you may be sanctioned.[1]) So I asked our guest speaker: 

"If housing providers, say, can be obliged to pay legal compensation for letting down service users regarding nelects of duty, how about UC claimants being compensated by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) over UC performance failures such as the infamous payment delays?"(2)

Our guest speaker replied that the DWP would be covered against having to pay such compensation, thanks to something called 'Crown Immunity'.

And that got me to thinking along the lines of a theme that is currently developing on this blog now that a 2017 UK General Election has been declared, the theme of the role of registered charities regarding formulation and criticism of government policy.(3) Does the concept of 'Crown Immunity' dictate that the 'leading children's charity' not criticise implementation of Universal Credit, etc while apparently colluding with government to snatch children away from poor parents so that more affluent couples/families in a very economically unequal society can adopt them, in the American fashion?

NSPCC turning a 'blind eye' to welfare reformist 'neglect' and blaming the parents?

The National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is a registered charity.(4)

The NSPCC

Weston House, 42 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NH. Leading children's charity, incorporated by Royal Charter
Registered charity number 216401. NSPCC, charity registered in Scotland, charity number SC037717. Jersey registered charity number AJC179.

NSPCC: "Without help, the scars of abuse can last a lifetime"

Neglect is a form of abuse, and there are several types of neglect, including emotional neglect. Community Care magazine reported in May 2014:(5)

Sector split on 'Cinderella Law' as emotional neglect referrals to social services rise

Number of cases children’s charity NSPCC referred to social services rose by 47% in 12 months

The number of emotional abuse and neglect cases referred by the NSPCC to social services for investigation rose by 47% last year, figures have revealed.

Staff at the NSPCC’s anonymous helpline referred 5,354 cases of potential emotional neglect and abuse to local authorities for further investigation in 2013-14, up 47% from the 3,629 cases referred to councils in 2012-13.

The government is considering making emotional neglect and abuse a criminal offence. The so-called ‘Cinderella Law’ would see the 1933 criminal offence of child cruelty updated to include emotional abuse as well as physical abuse....

 But in Kwug Blog's view, that is a case of government ignoring its own sins and disregarding links between its policies and the trials and tribulations it is putting poor parents through with its 'welfare reforms' that are excused by the 'austerity' that it colluded with the instigation of for terms of the post-2012 banks collapse.

See also

Meacher Housing Bill public health amendment gets off to a flying start TAP lobbying Peers to pass it in March(6)

and

http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=schools+breakfast(7)

and
http://www.socialworkfuture.org/articles-resources/uk-articles/296-michael-gove-wrong-social-work-reform (8)

and
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/mar/16/tax-credit-clause-becomes-law-without-parliament-vote

and consider how, when parents are neglected by more affluent 'decision makers' who take away the parent's incomes, the parents can have the emotional energy to spare for the children given all the demands the abusive state puts upon the poor parents?

Reference links

1. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/07/15/sharing-knowledge-in-the-face-of-further-attacks/
2. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/18/flaws-universal-credit-system-vulnerable-people-penniless-citizens-advice-study
3. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/revisiting-kwug-blogs-2015-uk-general-election-posting-pollsters-vision-excludes-those-offline.html
4. https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/  
5. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2014/05/29/sector-split-cinderella-law-amid-rise-emotional-neglect-referrals-social-services/
6. http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/meacher-housing-bill-public-health-amendment-gets-off-to-a-flying-start-tap 
7. http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=schools+breakfast  
8. http://www.socialworkfuture.org/articles-resources/uk-articles/296-michael-gove-wrong-social-work-reform

PR as public relations in politics and the selling of jobcentre-funded training in the Tony Blair era

In a blog post 'On the Lost Art of Intellectual Honesty', Craig Murray states:

.... One of the arguments the Blairites use against Corbyn is that he had the temerity to employ nuance and intellectual honesty in discussing the EU. Intellectual honesty is certainly not something Tony Blair ever employed.Politics has become a branch of PR. It is just about selling. The party, candidate or policy you are selling must be portrayed as the absolute epitome of excellence, with no flaws whatsoever. Political discourse has therefore become juvenile. It is about expensively dressed, well groomed salesmen with perfect teeth. Thought is positively frowned upon.(1)

I especially concur with Murray's conclusions about politics becoming a branch of PR. It goes back to a song I first heard and read the background to in about 1973 on a Joe McDonald (ex-Country Joe & The Fish at a time when he just wanted to be known as ‘Joe McDonald’) live album, 'Tricky Dickey'(2)

The song is based on the New York Times best seller by Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President.(3) The song is especially good at highlighting how PR focuses on ‘solutions’ without particularly investigating the kind of juvenile political discourse that has preceded the current situation.

And I would argue that the transition of Bill Gates from ‘software developer’ to 'global philanthro-captialist' has been marked by manipulation of contract law, business acumen and substantial PR.(4)

Window 95 and 'welfare to work' schemes with government-funded training

When Windows 95 emerged on the scenes from 1995, for example, it became the ‘standard platform’ for desktop computing in the conventional office world; and government-funded computer skills training schemes became a means for ‘training companies’ then focused on that as a ‘welfare to work’ avenue.

Some of those companies were better than others in terms of my own experience of ‘user-outcomes’, yet the worst tended to go in for over-subscription at the expense of under-provision. Four class loads of trainees in the latter were whisked through one training room in a day, maximising the amount of profit and minimising ‘user-friendly access to equipment’. In my experience, the better companies had the disadvantage that the Training & Enterprise Councils ruled against trainees — even with learning difficulties — returning to them. I was told patronisingly that they would not send me back to a training company that I was satisfied with for consolidation in the same kind and level of training. “We don’t want you to become institutionalised,” the Focus TEC for Central London told me when I asked for help in getting Level 1 training in Microsoft Office beyond word processing.

One of the shoddier standard companies tended to shunt trainees for half the day of a 5-day week into ‘open learning’ that was supposed to be devoted to ‘jobsearch’. We were told by Head of Jobsearch to submit photocopies of our CV for each job, and to do a minimum of 16 job applications per week, recorded in a ‘jobsearch portfolio’ to be submitted each week. I got told off for “not devoting enough time for job search.” In fact after spending most of the week skimping what spare Personal Computer access I could get at that company in customising my CV to the job application in hand. I had also spent a whole weekend perfecting the required handwritten letter, making six drafts before sending off my application. Crucially in terms of results though, that one written job application got me an interview; most other ‘trainees’ had no interviews to record. That was in 1998.

By June 2000, a home PC bought for by my mum on the advice of my earlier, excellent Information Communications Technology trainer who had helped me achieve my NVQ Level 1 about 5 months after the initial, funded training, helped me acquire the ‘underpinning knowledge’ to pass the entry test for a Web Development training course with a ‘Positive About Disabled People’ and ‘Investor in People’ award winning charity in SE London. Yet Blairite politics reared its ugly head when I challenged their administrator over the extent of the curriculum vs the six-week duration and no guarantee of a work placement. “I agree with you,” she told me; but the Government has told us to halve the length of training so as to double the amount of throughput.”

In September 2000, having decided to turn down the offer of a place on that course, I was one of several disgruntled ex-jobcentre funded trainees to contact the then BBC2 Working Lunch programme following Immigration Minister Barbara Roache MP’s speech to Labour Party Autumn Conference announcing ‘special green card status’ for people with special skills from abroad.

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Link addresses

1. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/07/lost-art-intellectual-honesty/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmp9gRsncuY
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_McGinniss#The_Selling_of_the_President
4. http://londongreenleft.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/save-us-bill-gates-video-game-satirises.html

"Charity knitting, anyone?"

From Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty

CHARITIES, KNITTING AND DEMOCRACY

David Cameron's new minister for civil society, Brooks Newark, has been branded patronising and dismissive after he told charities to "stick to their knitting" and keep out of politics.

LETTERS IN THE GUARDIAN TODAY 5TH SEPTEMBER 2014

My charity knitting began in the 1990s, helping people who could not afford their poll tax. Around 5,000 people were sent to prison by the magistrates for non-payment. Over 1,000 of those imprisonments were found to be unlawful by the high court. Cases which included a couple in their 80s, who were incontinent in court, another pensioner with her Zimmer frame and a single mother who owed only £20.

Then a vicar in the Chilterns, and chair of a charity, I attacked the Tory government for introducing such flagrantly unjust laws. That rang a bell in the mind of Michael Heseltine, a nearby Conservative MP for Henley on Thames until 2001, who set about abolishing the dreaded tax. Long may charity knitting involve telling the uncomfortable truth to power.

Rev Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/04/charities-knitting-democracy-brooks-newmark

Rev Paul Nicolson

Taxpayers Against Poverty

93 Campbell Road, 

Tottenham, 

London N17 0BF

0208 3765455

07961 177889

also at www.z2k.org 

also at www.prohousingalliance.com

www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk

www.facebook.com/pages/Taxpayers-Against-Poverty/299911526728884

https://twitter.com/taxpayers_a_p

Please sign our petition celbrating Martin Luther King

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/53579

Parliament is asked to debate the speech made by Martin Luther King 50 Years ago in Washington USA on the 28 August 1963 and to note that it can be applied to circumstances in Britain in August 2013. He said “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”