Cameron's benefit fraud proposals:
Benefit fraud is wrong. Unless you're some parody of the far left, with a Che Guevara T-shirt and Fahrenheit 9/11 in your DVD player, I doubt you would defend trying to obtain money from the state by false pretences.
However, many conservative commentators use the tiny minority of welfare claimants to portray a welfare system abused on a regular basis by lazy people who don't work.
People post on forums about their neighbours who are unemployed and allegedly have a bigger TV or nicer car, often going into such detail it becomes hard to believe they have evidence for all these allegations (Some of these people are probably self-employed instead of unemployed, unless their are unemployed people who make sure their neighbours are aware of their employment status).
Benefit fraud needs to be kept in perspective. As Liberal Conspiracy's Dave Ostler mentions, only 1% of benefit is fraudulently claimed. And, out of a total of £5.2bn in misallocated benefits, only £1bn is related to fraud.
People who can work, are able to find work and refuse offers of work should be penalised. But with a lot of unwell people out there and high unemployment, that applies to very few people. Most of those sitting in the Jobcentre waiting to be called by an advisor want to work. After all, who wants to live on £63.45 a week?
Cameron, I believe, is trying to appeal to people who have never been unemployed and believe those on benefits to be feckless layabouts who drink beer all day and watch Sky Sports on widescreen televisions. Cracking down on benefit fraud is a good idea, but we are at a risk of reinforcing stereotypes.
I am also concerned at the idea that a private company will be looking through claimants' records. This commission-based examination could lead to genuine claimants being branded and benefit cheats.
Writing for the Guardian, Tony Levene highlights some concerns:
My journalistic experience with data mining and how it is used in credit applications or sending in debt collectors strongly suggests that their systems are far from reliable. If your name is Mary Davies or John Smith and you claim benefits, then watch out. The more usual your moniker, the more you risk being confused with someone else of the same name...The Information Commissioner is concerned about privacy implications and has requested a meeting with the Welfare Minister. I hope he reads Tony Levene's article before he does so.
The system works on people staying in one definable place. Moving around a lot – and many claimants have to do this – automatically creates negative credit-rating marks. Sometimes people are deemed not to exist (and therefore likely cheats) because the Post Office changed their postcodes and the rating agency failed to update them.
Information can be correct but is often incomplete. Two years ago, I sent £2 to each of the three agencies to see what information they held on me. Each one was different – none was complete. The reference agencies already hold amazing power over our everyday lives, splitting the population into rating-haves and rating-havenots.
If you spend all your life without credit – that's still not a crime – then you won't have a rating. And no rating is not just zero, it's a huge minus. There is also a race element to this. Asian areas typically get poor ratings because their culture eschews credit. Even a £10-a-month mobile phone contract depends on a positive rating...
Access to your information is limited to that £2 search. You won't know what the information is used for, or any underlying assumptions on which it is based. Two pounds might not seem much to some; to those on benefits, it can mean a lot.
Other ways to reduce the welfare bill:
As well as reducing benefit fraud (without dogwhistle politics and rabid newspaper headlines) more needs to be done to encourage people off benefits.
If you want to get people off benefits, you need to provide as much help as possible, which will also make it much easier to find out who doesn't want to work.
At the moment, jobseekers are not encouraged to volunteer. They are able to volunteer for up to four days a week (the limit is not sixteen hours any more), but it is not suggested by jobcentre workers on a regular basis to people who have never considered volunteering.
Volunteering can change the life of a jobseeker. Instead of spending weekdays sitting at home applying for jobs and going to job interviews, jobseekers can gain useful skills, grow in confidence and network.
Conservative (small c) commentators are often inclined towards the unemployed picking up litter, removing the stones from horses' hooves or other unpleasant jobs. While there are jobs in these areas, this kind of volunteering will not look good on your CV and will not help in the same way that volunteering at a charity
The website do-it.org is a great place to look for volunteering roles, or contact charities directly.
The last government's Backing Young Britain mentoring program, administered by Nord Anglia, was a great help to many unemployed young people. Such a program, now cut by the Coalition, should be offered from Day 1 and compulsory from Stage 2 (after 3 months unemployed).
If jobseekers are encouraged into such programs from Day 1, rather than after three months or six months, people will not languish on the dole. And the longer you remain on the dole, the more demoralised you get.
I have no evidence for this, but I reckon that Backing Young Britain, if kept, would have paid for itself in terms of getting young people off the dole.
Another way to improve the chances of jobseekers finding work is to give people a printed list of useful jobsites and sites offering interview and CV advice as well as a list of possible interview questions.
Jobseekers should also be issued with a cardboard folder to keep their documents in on Day 1. They should be able to request a new cardboard folder every two months. If they want one at any other time, they should pay the full cost of the folder. This will help them to learn the value of being organised.
Making the dole fairer:
As well as not pushing people who can't work into work, we also need to stop punishing under-25's for not having been able to work for as many years. This is the same kind of age discrimination which allows the minimum wage to be lower for those under 21.
JSA should be the same for all people, regardless of their age. It should also be raised to reflect inflation. No doubt some people on the Right will blame the unemployed for inflation. They seem to blame them for everything else.
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