“If they have been jobless for a year, they will have to do four weeks of community work”.
Well, that means the IS work, there ARE jobs, that need to be done. It means also there’re vacancies now. Where are the vanancies advertised? What’s the salary? When the unemployed employees earn as much as any other, then they’ll stop being unemployed, won’t they? Isn’t that a good solution?

It’s about time! There a loads of community jobs that aren’t being done because of finances. Canals could be reopened, city centres cleaned up, elderly could get home visits and help fixing their homes, so much good could be done.
People are getting money for nothing for ages .. it’s time they had to give something back. Besides it could teach new skills and motivate people to turn their lives around. Also, I’m sure many who could work will decide to take a real job rather than be forced into community service.

But the quote “People who abuse the system could also be made to work in return for benefits.” amazes me. If people are abusing the system, their benefits should be cut off. We should not be supporting them until the abuse stops - end of story.

here’s one for you people
i’m 34 and long term sick - have been from the age of 14, yes 14 before working age. i have a trouble dealing with people. i find i can’t do it… i’ve tried treatment to no success. i am the sort of person that would have been locked away 50 years ago and not let out. i try to keep myself to myself. last time i went out was over 3 months ago to see a doc about stalling on this living allowance. before that it was 6 years since i went out. i have no idea what im going to do. i am going to have to live wild to stay away from people thanks to labour - pick on the least able to defend themself. some people do not understand what the benefits are for

Any constructive reform of the current system would be welcome, but jobseekers should not “be made to work for their benefits”. They should be paid to do real jobs which are subsidised as necessary by state agencies in order to make them viable to the employer.

The human condition (confirmed 100% by my own experience as a “provider”) is that people do not value anything that is given in exchange for nothing. Give them more and they will simply demand more again as their “right”. Take it away and you incur vitriolic abuse. This is how the dependent society developed and political cowardice allowed it to flourish.

Bevin had the right idea when he put in place the framework which produced Remploy (whose primary purpose was to provide jobs for disabled people). Real jobs, subsidised where necessary, for people who needed them. How was that noble principle twisted into a sordid system of paying able-bodied people to sit at home and live off the taxes paid by other people, plus perhaps having a little job on the side? Probably because it is easier for politicians to buy peace and quiet with other people’s money than it is to find work for the people who want that money.

It is far better for the dignity and well-being of any decent and able-bodied person who finds themself out of a job through no fault of their own to be offered the same facilities for finding a job as currently exist, plus to be given a reasonable proportion of their previous earnings for perhaps 2 months while they seek work then, in the event that they have been unsuccessful, to be offered a suitable productive job paying at least the minimum wage for as long as is required.

To those who say that a person receiving benefits has already paid (or will pay later)for them in NI Contributions, they should know that this is simply one of the myths of the Welfare State. NICs ceased to be used to fund the Welfare State years ago and are simply thrown into the general taxation pot to be spent at the whim of the government. They are retained in name for no reason other than to disguise the true high level of direct tax on earned income.

Remploy is a relatively small but effective organisation which has been developed over 60 years and operates with a very reasonable subsidy from government. The model is easily capable of being adapted and expanded to cover able-bodied people. The money currently squandered on unemployment benefit, “back to work”, “new deal” and other expensive and ineffective schemes should be used for a massive expansion and administration of a Remploy-type model for providing subsidised real jobs by local authorities and private employers. There would be no stigma in taking one of these jobs as it would be a real job and the person concerned would remain part of the national workforce and retain the “work ethic” instead of lapsing into apathetic dependency on handouts. At the same time, because these jobs paid only the minimum wage, or slightly above it, they would not be attractive to people who felt they deserved better, so those people would have an incentive to seek a better-paying job elsewhere. Either way, the safety net is there for them, whether they choose to use it or not.

The key to such a system is providing the correct type of jobs while guarding against the exploitation and waste which frequently accompanies the doling out of taxpayers’ money. It would be best left to independent private contractors operating under Remploy-type terms of assignment. The concept of “community service in return for benefits” as currently proposed by both Labour and Tories illustrates their total ignorance of the feelings of normal people and their inability to speak in anything but trendy cliches. Is this the same “community service” carried out by criminals? So much for a politician’s idea of the dignity of jobseekers.

The current proposals from Labour are nothing more than a meaningless gesture to pre-empt the similar plans proposed by the Tories and nothing will be done until Labour is gone. I expect they know they won’t be around in 2 years’ time so will be happy to let the Tories take the abuse associated with the change, but when a new and hopefully better than currently proposed system is in place they will be able to say “We thought of it first”.

They did. In 1946. But lacked the political will to see it through.

I have no connection to Remploy.

I’m a newly divorced mother of 2 who is looking for some extra income (my ex left the country with his mistress and havent heard from him in 4 months). I have been answering posts on Craigslist for house work and babysitting, but lately have been creeped out by the people on Craigslist. I started using Workstir.com cuz it lets me see who I am doing business with. Most of the users are tied to their Facebook profile, which is nice, cuz most people on Facebook use their real name and contact info.