Fudged.
If the response to the welfare reform white paper could be best described as tepid, the government as usual has no one other than itself to blame. For a party so apparently diametrically opposed to leaks, the real tabloid pleasing meat was released last week; single mums having to begin their back to work preparations as soon as their nippers turn 1, along with a massive increase in the work-shy having their appeals for money subject to voice detectors.
Strangely then, neither of those things are played up in the actual document itself. In fact, the entire thing is, like the response, broadly tepid. It's difficult to know entirely why this is: is it because the government, as it has repeatedly done in the past, has flew the same-old kites in the tabloid press, disgusted their own supporters deliberately, then watered down the proposals when it comes to the actual crunch; or is it because it's accepted that with the recession about to bite, this isn't exactly the most opportune time to suddenly dump many of those previously on incapacity benefit on the bonfire?
As so often, the answer is probably a bit of both. Coupled with that is that the worst excesses of the David Freud review, cobbled together in three weeks by an investment banker who admitted that prior to being asked to ask to write it he knew absolutely nothing about welfare, but who knew within those three weeks that a good proportion of those on incapacity benefit instantly shouldn't be on it, have been shaved off. The green paper, prior to this white paper, titled without a hint of irony "No One Written Off", had all the proposals of this one without the added pilot schemes and readjustments. While the emphasis in the green paper, despite the title, was on punitive reforms where a dirty great stick was being yielded while a carrot similar in size to Richard Littlejohn's cock was the supposed reward, the message here is on tough love.
Along with "fairness", another of those all things to all people terms which governments without any remaining ideology cling to in the hope that it will pass for a defining motif, the proposals, having initially been sold on the prospectus that they were all about at long last telling the scroungers that they would have to sing for their supper, are now instead advertised as being designed to "help" those in need, giving them the push that they've been without, helping them to help themselves. This is "personalised conditionality", with the set groups being designed around those mentioned in that quite wonderfully vivid and explanatory diagram posted last week. The vast majority of those previously on incapacity benefit, either now or shortly to be herded onto the new "Employment and Support Allowance", will be placed in the middle "progression to work" where they will be expected to co-produce a back-to-work plan. It doesn't seem to matter that the government themselves don't expect much to come of this, hence why those on it are not going to be expected to actively look for work, probably because they recognise that most of those on incapacity benefit are either on it because they are genuinely too sick to work or because they were put on it in to massage the unemployment statistics and are now unlikely to return to the workplace however many plans you put in front of them; pointless box-ticking, as Chris suggests, needs to be done to appease the tabloid press and convince them something is going to be done.
Make no mistake however, even with all the concessions made, there are still fundamental problems with much of the white paper. First, and most apparent, is that despite all these reforms about to be made and with the workload at JobCentrePlus increasing as the jobless figures inexorably rise, only a further £1.3 billion has been allocated initially to help. That's before a substantial further amount is creamed off by the private and voluntary sector to help with those still out of work a year after being on JSA, who will be paid for every individual they place in a job. This is meant to save the money that would otherwise be spent in paying them JSA, but it's by no means clear whether there will be any overall saving once the contractors have had their pay and the person in a job has potentially claimed tax credits. Furthermore, what's incredibly likely to happen is that the private sector will find it easy with those who've been tardy in trying to find a job who are now having to get one unless they want to spend four weeks doing unpaid work, while finding it just as difficult with those who have tried but have comprehensively failed to find work. At the same time, those in that group will be having to do the unpaid work because the anti-scrounger lobby demand it, even though it's no fault of their own. Breeding bitterness and resentment against those who are supposed to be helping you and against work itself is not the greatest of ideas, but that seems to have passed those drawing the reforms up by completely.
Most pertinently however is that nowhere in this document is it explained how when we're approaching 2 million unemployed with only 500,000 vacancies that all of those currently on any of the current benefit schemes, whether JSA, income support or incapacity benefit can find work. Nowhere is it also set out exactly what work those who, after a year without finding a job, will be expected to do. Will they be sent out wearing fluorescent jackets with "Community Payback" on as well, or what? Exactly how many will simply take any job, however demeaning or poorly paid, just to avoid such treatment? As Compass argue, the white paper assumes that work is an end in itself, a route out of poverty, when it quite often isn't. The government even further infantalises and keeps the low paid hooked on handouts from the state with the tax credits scheme, rather than raising the tax thresholds and lifting them out of paying income tax altogether, not to mention introducing a living wage or a citizen's basic income.
Overall, as again often occurs, the result is a fudge. The hope is to achieve right-wing support while not riling the backbenchers and the soft left vote too much. In this, the government appears to have achieved its aim: only the socialist left seems really concerned, while the Tories have said they'll support it. The only people left without a say seem to be those on benefits themselves.
Labels: David Freud, James Purnell, New Labour, No One Written Off, policy, politics, scrounger processing, welfare reform
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