No benefits if unemployed for more than a year and other ways Sunak wants ti tackle the Benefits system

[cakeorwine]

This are the headlines - I can see some massive issues here for people - it's easy to say there are job vacancies - but what if they aren't in the area people are and there is no transport to get there. How does that work? I can see a lot of exploitation here.

There's also the other rules here around PIP payments, part time workers etc.

I wonder how much personal experience Sunak has of such things?

This is an outline from the Daily Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13330045/Benefits-axed-year-stop-lifestyle-choice-Prime-Minister.html

12-month rule for unemployed

Tory manifesto plans will see people on the dole have their benefit claims closed after a year unless they can convince Jobcentre staff they are actively looking for work and willing to accept any reasonable job offer.

Personal Independence Payments

Hundreds of thousands of people with anxiety and depression could lose access to payments worth up to £700 a month and instead be offered therapy to help them back to work.

PART-TIME WORKERS

New rules will require part-time workers on Universal Credit to look for more work. Anyone working for less than the equivalent of 18 hours a week on minimum wage will have to show they are actively seeking more hours.

Disability rules

The work capability assessment rules, which govern who is eligible for sickness benefits, will be tightened to require 424,000 with milder mental health conditions to start looking for work.

Sick notes

GPs could be stripped of their role in signing off people as sick and replaced by 'specialist work and health professionals' who will focus on what work people could do with support, such as flexibility to work from home.

Benefit Fraud

Investigators will be handed new powers to tackle benefit fraud, which hit £6.4 billion last year. In future they will have similar powers to those investigating tax fraud, including the ability to make seizures and arrests

The bit about GPs not signing notes and new 'specialist work officials' helping people back to work by encouraging more flexible working is interesting. I wonder how they will do this and if employers will be legally obliged to offer any flexibility to their employees in the same way that they need to follow the current GP recommendations for job adaptation after sickness, and what would happen if the employer can't or won't adapt your role.

Typical tories. Lets blame the poor, sick, and disabled instead of taxing big corporations and billionaires.

Smoke and mirrors, don't be fooled!

GPS often have known their patients for years they are much better placed to make a judgement about whether someone can work or not

Have a look at the Restart scheme. It’s run by the job centre but does offer more targeted support.
DS and his girlfriend are both ND and in the age bracket that struggled to launch during the pandemic and both love Restart. They signpost to whatever services are needed - mental health, housing etc and give practical help with job hunting, CVs, interview skills etc.
They’ve both found work at around 30 hours a week which they enjoy and can cope with. It’s really bridged a gap for them.

The part about GPs not issuing sick notes - would this reduce GP waiting times? If so, I'd be for that

Devil in the detail! Actually most of these requirements already exist. You already need to seek more hours, to look for jobs etc. It's politics for the forthcoming election not anything new. Apparently there's going to be some tinkering to pip but I don't know anyone with mental health issues that would want to take measly benefits vs proper help to get them back into work, though i suspect this just talk

If your role cannot be adapted after you become disabled ( either mental of physical health reasons) then the capability procedures come into play and usually you are fired on grounds of inability to do the job.

Equality act requires reasonable adjustments but if someone is disabled in such a way that they cannot do the job, some employers will try to find an alternative but ultimately the person will be let go.

6.4 billion in benefit fraud. Most of this is organised crime not individuals.
23 billion in unclaimed benefits. Tories don’t give a toss about that.
I have pretty much stopped listening to anything this little half mast trousered worm says as he won’t be prime minister long enough to action any of the bollocks he spouts anyway.

No surprises here. Tories are gonna Tory.

Quite how they expect people with long term health problems to miraculously recover without sorting out the problems in our NHS isn't clear. But I don't suppose they really worry about minor details like that.

This is a big fear of mine, that more people who are ill suited to care work are forced into jobs caring for the most vulnerable members of society.

Yes, there is a desperate shortage of care staff because the work pays poorly and often has unsociable hours. But it isn't a job that just anyone should be doing.

My experience too - DD20 desperate to work but on waiting list for a year - she needs specialist treatment and we are constantly fighting to access it THEN we have to fight to get funding. This is literally insane.

Punching down. What a surprise.

Precisely. I suspect the point of including this 'plan' is to give the impression that currently there are loads of people claiming unemployment benefit for years without ever having to show that they are even trying to find work. The real plan is to get voters riled about people claiming benefits/immigrants etc and forgetting about the tories having given billions of pounds of taxpayer's money to their mates and crashing the economy.

Good. I was made redundant last year. Because I had savings and owned my home I was entitled to £84.80 for six months on new style JSA, based on having paid sufficient NI in the previous year. That was it. It's stopped now. Now I get nothing. I've been taking casual, short term, part-time work to pay my bills as nothing full-time has come through for me as yet. Had I rented my home and not had savings I'd have been getting more in benefits than I've managed to scrape together in this time, including the benefits I received - I'd have not bothered doing the work I've been doing if that's been the case.

Oh yeah, the job I got made redundant from was supported housing for homeless people. My take home was less than the benefit bill for each of those 😉

Of course this is just media soundbiting, it won't happen.

They could give GPs more powers to strike people off their list if they get agressive when refused a "fit note" that signs them off completely. That does seem an issue. Perhaps rather than remove GP's powers to issue fit notes they should perhaps look at the system. Sometimes fit notes ARE needed. So you go to a GP and they think oh dear this person needs a couple of weeks off work or they are contagious so need to be wfh as they are very ill, what then what - are they meant to go and see someone else?

(Sorry it posted twice)

It’s a move in the right direction

I absolutely agree

GPs could be stripped of their role in signing off people as sick and replaced by 'specialist work and health professionals' who will focus on what work people could do with support, such as flexibility to work from home.

Im confused I thought they wanted us all back in the office, ironically forcing some disabled people out of jobs they were only able to get because of remote working, but now they want us working from home again when it suits...

But I thought we were being lazy when we worked form home? Are we lazy, or is it jsut more flexible? Im confused, could they stick to a specific narrative please?

Exactly!

Hmm who should they target - business paying zero or hardly any tax or people who need support?!

Didn’t the tories scrap the extra funds companies could get for any additional support some disabled people might need to get and stay employed?

seems very stick and no carrot. So many barriers and nothing to support people getting over them

im coming up to my one year anniversary on a waiting list for mental health support

Completely agree with all of these

And she has you fighting for her, supporting her and guiding her.

so many don’t have that person to fight for them.

Any job that you can do should be done.

My friends’s husband was an accountant made redundant took a job a domestic cleaner 30 hours a week - applied for jobs around his work but he was determined his children didn’t see him as sitting around waiting for ‘an accountancy job’ the first interview he had was for a position on much less than he was and at interview they said what have you been doing since your last job and he said cleaning toilets, floor etc at a local care home and they employed him there and then.

I don’t like this idea that if you have no job, you have to have the perfect local job. If it entails a bus and a train - do it. Benefits should catch those too ill to work not those that need once to fit around school etc I’m a single parent and have always worked and I have no partner or family support. The school has a breakfast and after school club and I use it. It’s tough / I will have £30 at the end of this month- but I chose to have children

Sadly, there are many people who do exploit the benefits system. If we deny this truth, we are doing people a disservice. When benefit fraud is £6.4 BILLION a year, theres clearly a problem with the system.
That money could be better spent providing support for people before they fall into poverty traps where it becomes financially more viable to claim benefits than to go out to work.