Where are those people's families and where is my tax going?

[AmusedTaupePlayer]

Nearly 50% of my income vanishes in tax and NI, and I’m seriously wondering what I’m getting in return. The streets are filthy, the Tube’s a mess of delays and breakdowns, and my child’s school can’t even fix leaking ceilings.
GP appointments? Impossible. Police follow-ups? Hit and miss.
I asked my councillor, and he said most of the money’s going to social care — mainly for elderly people and kids in care. Fine, but it makes me ask: where are their families? Why is the state carrying so much, and why does it feel like we're footing the bill for a system that’s barely working?
I’m not trying to be cruel — just frustrated. Is anyone else getting the same response from their council? Or any better answers?

My sister's step children all live like this. Their 55 year old mother never worked. Had 4 DC with her ex (my bil) and 3 by other men. The DC are all now in their 20's and on repeat. They have 4-5 takeaways per week, always spare money to 'lend' to family members and friends, holidays to Benidorm every year, new iPhones, iPads, TV's etc.
They have all been raised in an environment where money comes from nowhere and they expect it will always be the case. They haven't ever been educated to understand where their benefits actually come from and don't care either.

Same is true of elder care. While it sounds lovely and cosy to have family care, the truth is that in the past the 'standard' care of elderly people was often to a standard that modern medicine doesn't consider ok, e.g. people being left in bed with meals and bedpan as soon as possible. This was both cheaper and easier for a family to provide and meant they didn't last long under that regime. Better standards of care cost a lot more.

@TempestTost I think you’re being a little unfair. To my knowledge, it’s children with SEN who are given taxis to school. It’s often essential because there is no suitable place within a reasonable distance. My DS has a specialist place at a school only a few miles away, so we don’t need or use the LA transport, but most of DS’ peers come from miles around in taxis. I’m sure they and their parents would prefer a suitable school locally.

Many SEN kids have been out of school for months because either they or the MS school couldn’t cope. You can’t just write off kids that are more expensive to educate - especially because rates of autism and adhd are only going up.

I have spent about £30k so far on private diagnoses and adaptations for DS, and we’re both additional rate taxpayers who claim nothing except £300 a month DLA.

It’s interesting that when women no longer accepted being walked all over and doing all the caring for free and were able to go to work for their own money it all seemed to go pear shaped. Things changed as if in step - 2 people working, house prices rise, bills, council tax / no longer could one wage give a family a decent life. The government wanted that extra tax, private companies wanted a slice of that money. The things (mainly) women did for free then miraculously had to be done by the state and all paid for by the tax payer. Many women would not go back to those days but why were/are families as a whole not expected to shoulder some of the burden? Why did it not shift to men also being expected to step up? It seems now that everyone needs to be helped by the state, no expectation from family taking any responsibility. Child got sen, council must fund £££ to get them to school. Grandad spent all his money, didn’t put any aside, government funds everything.

It seems to me that there are things that people expect to be paid for that aren’t necessarily the ‘norm’. A good example imo is a person in higher rate PIP who gets a car because they have anxiety and won’t get a bus. I really don’t understand how the country can afford this level of support - a car fully expensed so you can go out? Meanwhile we have people who are able and willing to work who can’t because they can’t get to work on public transport and can’t afford a car.

There seem to be a shift from it being done for free to it being expected to be paid for by the state with nothing in between. No expectation that people will pay when they have the need but the expectation we will all pay for their needs. It’s gone too far.

I always make similar posts on such threads as people don’t realise how much profit is being made from the taxpayer.

My DD has a social care budget of £4000pw and I know that the agency keeps just over half of that and the carer gets just under half. It’s disgusting. If Councils could employ and pay carers directly the savings would be enormous.

(On a side note, I am also on the payroll to provide occasional care for DD and I know many other parents who have negotiated this with the LA as well due to such a shortage of carers. For some it’s disgusting that a parent is paid to provide care, but it means I can actually afford to do it and avoids her going into a £££ residential setting).

Yup, we have kids travelling to us from 3 counties over, around 90 minutes taxi ride each way who gets SEN transport, all because we were the nearest provision with space that could meet their needs.
That said, the majority of our kids are coming in wearing expensive tracksuits and trainers, yet we dare ask parents for a contribution towards a school trip and we're monsters for taking food out of their kids mouths.

Over the last few years, every public service has been hollowed out, so services still cost a lot to run but are not funded properly to offer value for money....

An easy example is road mtce, cheaply done, if at all, more pot holes, more shoddy repairs...
Just come back from France, 2500 miles, 600 of cycling, the largest pot hole was about 1/2 inch deep, probably been fixed by now!!!

Same with social care, people not cared for properly, re admitted to hospital, more care needed but not provided... we pick up the tab for these failures.

Police? so hollowed out they cannot deal with minor crime, these people then go on to become more serious offenders... costing far more....

See also Probation Services.

We have seen tax payers money go to privatised services at a phenomenal rate, yet services are in almost total collapse, the experiment has to end but do we have the money or competence to rebuild to where we once were?

Even though you'd probably consider me a filthy degenerate because I had my first child at 16 and didn't have a job for a few years I actually agree with what you're saying and sometimes sit and think about how much it must all cost.
I'm talking about the heroin addicted ladies who have 7+ children taken from them at birth straight away, I've heard about the cost of a traumatised teenager in care it's like thousands every week. I don't know what the solution is as the drugs have completely fucked these people's heads apparently they don't realise that having a crippling heroin addiction probably isn't the best time to have children?

When you read threads about people’s parents putting their houses in a trust, or signing ownership over to their kids in their 60s/70s, everyone accepts that as a sensible thing to do to avoid care costs.

The public paying for their eventual care is the result.

Yep.

Demographic changes unfortunately as we aren't a pyramid shape anymore.

Social care is needed to look after an ageing population. It's not the responsibility of families to care for elderly people - this isn't the 19th century!

People don't want to pay for it though

Heron addicts may well be having sex for drugs, contraception isn't at the top of the agenda nor for the men either.

But its not these poor unfortunates who are bankrupting the country, it'll be business paying shite wages, requiring people to seek in work benefits thats the issue.

I work in social care for learning disabled. A lot of service users would 100 years ago have been dumped in an asylum. Now they have their own flat in a block with carers round the clock on site. That's better surely?

Social care is needed to look after an ageing population. It's not the responsibility of families to care for elderly people - this isn't the 19th century!

Nobody wants to pay though.

Interesting just how little money is spent on housing and infrastructure and public law and order and education

Education and housing needs a lot more, young people and dc need investment

Most people don't need SC, they just die in a hospital setting or at home.

1 in 3 end up in a CH and often not for long.

The costs are relatively minor, a national ins scheme could be implemented easily but the right wing press scream "Death Tax" the moment its mentioned....

"Duty" and "responsibility" are just words that the state can use to offload the tasks that we are all paying for as taxpayers. I don't expect family to look after me - I will pay for that myself. But some people don't have the funds, which is where the state has to step in.

I'm not really commenting on whether it is good that the state helps fund education, I think in many ways it's positive.

But there has been a change, a few generations ago now, about this. At once time it was up to families to educate kids, either to pay tutors, or to pay fees, or to teach their own children to read and write and do sums. Charitable institutions took up some of the slack with things like Sunday schools and then there were also a lot more fee paying, but affordable, cottage schools. And of course many children left school at 14 or 15 to work (some with better reading, writing, and sums than they graduate with now.)

The basic idea of families however was that they were responsible to see their children educated, and often very local organisations like their churches helped out.

The state eventually became more involved because it was seen as a good way to help kids but also good for the economy to see children well educated.

This has really changed people 's attitudes over the years however, in a way similarly to the state provision of health care. Many parents now do not think about families as having primary responsibility for education, it is the job of the state to provide almost everything, including bussing or taxis if necessary, and todecide what that education should look like. There is suspicion in many cases of parents who want to home educate, and even private education to some degree, at least among many Labour voters - as if they are over-stepping and impinging on the state's right to educate children as they see fit.

This is a really differernt basic attitude and leads to differernt behaviours and expectations. It means is many people feel very entitled to have the public purse pay for all of the needs of their children in terms of education, not only when it is an absolute need because the parents cannot afford it, but where they can. For example, I have known people who could reasonably drive children to school say they should not have to because it is the responsibility of the state - why should they have to be put out, maybe manage their work schedules for example, to drive their kids to the school?

See, I don’t like the idea that as SEN parents we can’t or shouldn’t contribute at all either. DS’ special school seems really reluctant to ask parents for anything - his former MS and his current school both hired a “caveman” actor guy to teach them history. It was great, but whereas the MS school parents were asked to contribute £x each, we weren’t. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The ones I know actively get excited with every pregnancy even after the eighth child in a row has been taken into care at birth they talk like it'll be different this time.
Like I said though drugs have fucked with their decision making skills so I can only pity but there's no denying it must cost an insane amount.

@Thedailybeachedwhale
There by the grace of God go I.
However I would know having children in that state is wrong? Maybe something else at play to get the drugs

50% tax you must be doing pretty well for yourself or exaggerating.

What people seem to somehow not realise is that the money has to be paid one way or another, and it's people that earn the money.

The state doesn't have a magic money tree, it's funds are based on productivity too.

Much as people hate her, this is what Thatcher meant when she said "there is no such thing as society." The benefits that come from the state are actually provided by real people. If it's not the responsibility of families to care for elderly people, whose responsibility is it? Well it will still be theirs because taxes will have to go up for those who can afford it if those same people don't want to pay directly. And the poor can't pay either way.

Not sure what exactly you mean? Like I say I acknowledge I'd be considered a degenerate worthy of a beating on here by many for my past unemployment and teen pregnancy 😂

But I would never have children whilst a heroin addict and op has a point it must cost an insane amount when these ladies are on their tenth child taken straight into foster care at birth who sadly may have some serious health or learning disabilities from drug exposure in utero

I take your point about the change in attitudes @TempestTost but I would imagine that most parents demanding a taxi because it’s not their responsibility to get their child to school would quite rightly be told to jog on!

We chose to educate independently and started off funding DS in the feeder nursery for a decent prep, then pre-prep (where he was diagnosed autistic and dyspraxic), before being kicked out - and into the state system - because he was too difficult. It’s not just the parents who game the system, unfortunately.

I could have given up work to home educate, but my tax (up to 60% of my income) might be useful, quite apart from the likely cost of residential psychiatric care when I went completely crackers from the 24/7 demands of his condition.

I wouldn't consider taking care of a member of my family as unpaid labour.
Just like I didn't consider raising my dc as unpaid labour. It's part of family life.

Our council tax is hundreds of pounds a month. We don't live in a grand house or a grand area. I don't know why it's do expensive. The police get a massive amount of it, but seeing a policeman is akin to spotting a unicorn round here. I don't know what they are doing with the money.

There are many houses being built, no schools though, or dentists surgeries or doctors. Or care homes, or even prisons.

The schools never stop asking for handouts. The public paths are thick with weeds and overgrown.