UK benefits system - what would you change?

[Galactico]

Just a bit of curiosity, really.

Many people agree that the benefits system isn’t fit for purpose now. Whether that be because they feel it’s too easy to get them and so there’s a lack of incentive to work for some people, or because people are subject to degrading assessments and the constant threat of being sanctioned/removed.

Any opinions?

But @Gwenhwyfar you’ve chopped off the part of my same post where I said to increase SMP and heavily subsidise childcare.

There are other ways to incentivise people to have children.

Is it better to incentivise the couple that would have had 1 child to have 2, rather than paying out for child #5?

Universal Basic Income and a change to the "one size fit's all" concept of benefits (circumstantial based).

As for the Jobcenter, get rid of sanction based punishments and have initiatives in place so people can gave live working experience with financial reward. It doesn't have to be "you have to work 15 hours to get any benefits", but it could be something as simple as a paid trial shift like thing with employers signing up to take someone on once a week for a few hours. Not well thought out but there are far better systems than punishing people who don't want to apply be cleaners or cashiers when they have a degree in science for example.

Which brings me to my next point about JC. Make it so the advisers are helping people find employment in something they actually want to do/are qualified for/have experience in. I absolutely loathed being made to apply for anything my adviser shoved over her desk at me or I would get a financial penatly (whcih would then affect my ability to feed my kids and pay my bills meaning I was MORE of a burden on the system, like things I had no experience in, wasn't qualified for, didn't actually want to do etc. It was a waste of my time and theirs. For people who want to retrain or go into a different field offer training or initiatives so they could actually move into a different career.

Also, those saying that people shouldn't get £1500 for not working because Nurses get that or less so it's unfair, Why the fuck do you think nurses are striking? Because they should be getting significantly MORE if £1500 is the baseline for survivability (News flash, it's not. £1500 is barely scraping by cash).

This gets my vote

Not benefits but there really are a lot of men getting their children raised at the taxpayers' and mothers' expense.

Childcare costs should really be included in CMS calculations.

Penalties for not paying should be like those in the US.

I agree.

Yes to means testing AA but then if you did that you would surely need to do it for PIP as well . The number of OAP's I help to claim Attendance Allowance as part of my job and they have 50 - 100k in the bank is surprising . In my opinion it also an extremely easy benefit to claim, no assessment etc and virtually everyone ( in my experience )gets awarded it, usually at the higher rate of £92 a week. I had one man on higher rate AA recently that I needed to speak to and I called to speak to him to be told he can't come now he's up a ladder in the garden cutting a tree down. I had one elderly lady the other week telling me she was in fuel poverty as I was helping her complete an AA form. So I thought I better do a benefit check there and then to see if she was eligible for any pension credit or anything. Lo and behold she had nearly 100k in the bank yet told me she 3 times she was in fuel poverty ! I would also crack down on benefit fraud. I am a benefits advisor and have so many people where things don't add up, property is put into different family names, houses abroad not declared, people asking what would be the scenario if I gave all my savings to my kids etc and then claimed benefits. I am shocked at how so many people are subtlety trying to play the system. Another one where bills are put into someone elses name who is on pension credit so that they can try to get all arrear wipes out by an energy trust fund but they are not actually the home owner who owns multiple properties. It's constant and makes me feel so uneasy that I'm seriously looking for another job because of it .Then I have work collegues who always seem to be bragging that their partners/ relatives are doing most of their self employed work cash in hand and as other have said those still on the old tax credit system who won't work more than 16 hours despite their kids being in their teens. Sorry for the rant but I deal with it every day !

I would happily do nothing for £1500 I would better of than I am now working .

Is the 15 hour cut off still in place. It stymied my friend looking for work because she lost so much benefit wise. Single parent young child at primary.

On Universal credit once your child is primary school aged you are expected to look for work earning 25 x nmw per week and once they are secondary school aged it goes up to 30 x nmw so a lot less generous than the old tax credit system which allows a lone parent to work just 16 hours right up until their youngest child leaves education. So yes it is changing slowly but many many still on tax credits and the change over keeps being delayed due to one thing or another so tax credits I expect will still be around for many years to come.

Help disabled people to obtain their benefits without resorting to lies and misrepresentation about them in the disability assessments.

Disabled people could do a mixture of work, if they're able to, then receive a top up benefit to ensure they're not existing in poverty and hardship. Many disabled people are able to work part time, it's not always an all or nothing situation.

More for single people, if you are single with no children and temporarily lose your job then you are in a very bad situation.
There's loads of other things but that's the one that really sticks out for me.

Thanks. At the time it was so bad I was doing a weekly shop for them so they'd eat. She was selling furniture etc to pay electric gas bills. While her bastard ex unbeknownst to her had taken out a second mortgage on their home for his mistress, hadn't paid HMRC or vat and done a runner to the canaries

The sickening thing with CMS is that the powers are there,

there’s just no political will to use them.

Googled CMS still no wiser what is it

Child maintenance service.

Child maintenance service replaced the child support agency. Tasked with ensuring non resident parents pay for their children but there are too many loop holes and it does not work well for people who decide they are not going to pay.

Benefits include those for older people and in a way for those seeking asylum.

I would have some of the benefits for those of pensionable age not start at the date you become eligible for the old age pension. Pay something towards prescriptions, have the bus pass say start at 70, for example.

As well as speeding up asylum claims, I would have those claiming asylum allowed to do some paid work, perhaps a defined range of jobs.

I would like to see all benefits and associated handouts quoted in gross terms. So what would someone have to earn in terms of a PAYE salary to get the same net income. Take universal credit et al and add on the value of free prescriptions, free school meals, social tariff broadband, cost of living payments, 85% childcare paid and so on then turn it into a gross amount so it can be compared to the equivalent salary.

I can see why some low earners feel cheated by a system that ‘pays’ more to people on benefits. All of the benefits and allowances and handouts should be added up….

The biggest issue is the lack of will to use their powers.

I worked there for three months. Having had to chase my DD’s father on the day I started I knew of things they could do that the guy training me didn’t know.

There’s no no political will power to actually do much about the non payers

I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s largely a matter of resources.

It is almost certainly cheaper to not count CM as income for benefit calculations than it is to ensure that men pay. And to leave the women who earn enough to not qualify for benefits to just pay for their children themselves.

I’m not saying that’s fair or ok. But I suspect the lack of will to do more than promote the superficial appearance that all fathers must contribute is related to the costs. Of course, that itself is illustrative of a deep rooted misogyny: it’s only women - single mothers, indeed - so it doesn’t merit resourcing and enforcing properly.

Means testing can cost more than it saves. Look at the bedroom tax which is costing money. But remember the Tory credo that money spent teaching the poor not to be poor is never wasted.

People shouldn't be better off on benefits than they are working. Some people are actually in the position where they have to turn down work or extra hours because they would be worse off. That's crackers.

That said, the basic Jobseeker's Allowance is very low, who could survive on that?

Yes. But there’s appetite to waste money on that.

certain sections of society would prefer to waste money on administering the bedroom tax just to be sure that poor people aren’t getting a free extra bedroom. This group is large/powerful enough that politicians think it’s a good use of state resources. 🤦🏻‍♀️

It’s not remotely lack of resources. It’s pure misogyny.

The difference in how aggressively a female NRP is tackled to a male is staggering. My probation was extended for highlight three such cases.

It would be vastly cheaper to have an effective system whereby maintenance either counted, or you had the “RP can keep x amount and the rest goes to the welfare bill”. But that would mean chasing men on behalf of those feckless women that do sex… Can’t have that now