To think the level of state involvement many posters expect is bonkers?

[FaeryRing]

It seems like there is nothing the state shouldn’t be responsible for any more! Feeding your kids, getting them to school, hiring ‘behaviour specialists’ for every classroom because parents don’t want to discipline their own children, giving you money towards virtually anything you ask for because it’s not fair you have to pay for anything yourself.. I find it absolutely wild and don’t think it’s at all realistic or representative of what most adults believe?

The only 1 bed social housing in the City I live in is in tower blocks where they put people coming out of prison and who have drug and alcohol issues. No elderly person with any sense would downsize and move in there. Even local people do not walk under the tower block because people chuck things out the windows.

Ironic that some posters on this thread are saying some people shouldn't have children. I don't think a housing system that possibly encourages some people to have children is a good idea. Of course children need decent homes and families should be housed, but there should also be help for childfree people. Single people and childfree couples pay tax too and have every right to housing.

The only 1 bed social housing in the City I live in is in tower blocks where they put people coming out of prison and who have drug and alcohol issues. No elderly person with any sense would downsize and move in there. Even local people do not walk under the tower block because people chuck things out the windows.

I assume that's the only option for any single person who needs social housing? Seems really inappropriate to house disabled people, DV victims, and elderly people in the same block. I think people with drug and alcohol issues, and people coming out of prison should have help. Housing, but also support and rehab services (because even if someone thinks they don't deserve help, it saves money to rehabilitate people) but there should be separate housing schemes.

Actually thinking about it, many disabled and elderly people wouldn't manage well in a tower block even if it was a luxury private one. They need accessible homes.

And as mobility declines with age a tower block would be impractical unless it was ground floor and then where do you store a mobility scooter if you need one.

Elderly people are better off having a spare bedroom. When we downsize as we get older we will buy a 2 bedroom place. This gives a bedroom where a carer or family member can stop over occasionally if needed. Or a place to store medical equipment.

I think the state should pay for some things. One area that put a strain on the NHS is people playing sports and their sports injuries. I think sports or pastimes, hiking, cleaning moving etc, should have to be insured separately to cover the costs of injuries. Eg break a leg playing amateur football and a person gets emergency instant NHS treatment. Need a hip replacement? Wait 2-3 years. Or be a woman needing pain management? No chance.

I do not agree for ordinary sports. I do think with dangerous sports there is an argument for compulsory insurance. These tend to be costly sports anyway, so an insurance policy on top should be fine.

I agree older people often need a spare bedroom. We need more social housing in the UK, and that needs to include accessible homes that take into account mobility needs.

Thank you, and I wish the same for you.

Social housing should always be temporary though. As soon as your children leave home you should be moved to a flat.

We need more flats to prevent the countryside bring torn up for housing.

Nice flats, in a square to create a community, with a playground, outdoor space, allotments.

It wasn’t intended to be temporary. The thousands of council houses built post war were built to be homes for life. Social housing tenants aren’t second class citizens to be moved about on the whim of their landlord.

People calling for less state involvement are the very first to moan when they find they ve a SEN child, a parent who needs social care or find themselves injured and cannot live on £93 per week.

The time bomb heading towards us is the millions in rented accommodation who then retire.

Even with a decent private pension, they simply will not be able to afford the rent, which could easily be as much as the SP alone.

@Fairyliz

"Well I’m in my 60’s so been around a lot longer than most of MN and also worked in the public sector for 45 years.
Can you list all of these things that used to be provided because I can’t think of a lot?"

Schools:
Many more SEN schools & schools for disruptive kids.
School nurses/nit nurses
There were more schools so likely to be closer to home so more DCs could walk
School day was longer 9-4 when I was in primary
More extra curricular clubs attached to schools

Housing: council housing for all, bigger houses with spare bedrooms and highly subsidised
Sheltered housing for older people
More daycare for older people

Health:
2/3 week stay in hospital after birth
Home helps after birth
Disabled kids/adults were put in homes/hospitals and 'looked after' by the state rather than families
More health visitor appointments
Everyone had a nhs dentist & had free 6 monthly check ups
More availability of orthodontics for kids
If kids were ill they were kept in hospital for months rather than expecting mothers to care for them

Other:
More full time day nurseries
More third sector funding to provide other support services
Social security paid for mothers to stay at home without any need to look for work until the youngest was 16, with lone parent top up payment and home responsibilities protection so they were classed as still contributing to their state pension.
Social security paid full rent
MIRAS tax relief for home owners
More public libraries with longer hours
More community centres
Much more legal aid
Community care grants which gave £500 to homeless people to set up home
Budgeting loans to help with new job costs like clothes & transport
Much cheaper public transport costs due to more subsidising

"Social housing should always be temporary though. As soon as your children leave home you should be moved to a flat"

So disturbing and so ill thought out.

We need more flats to prevent the countryside bring torn up for housing.

Nice flats, in a square to create a community, with a playground, outdoor space, allotments.

I agree, Gruffalo.

Although it sounds OK on paper, any idea of making people move from their large houses to smaller ones is just not going to work for all the reasons stated above.

Nice, low-rise flats are the way to go, or even better - that fantastic, genius invention of the Georgians and Victorians: good terraced housing, so that everyone gets a small front area and a back yard/garden - so important for young families, as well as for drying washing 'greenly'.

What a tragedy that so many were swept away after the war* and replaced with hellish high-rise blocks on bleak, windswept estates where, if you were a young parent you'd have to decamp down 20 floors to let your children play outside or abandon them to the dangers of playing unsupervised in the 'communal' areas below. Nightmare! So ill-thought out by privileged male architects (I bet you!) who'd swallowed the brutalist ideas of Le Corbusier whole. Idiots.

I blame the ideology which created these terrible estates for many of the social problems today. I think they destroyed communities and basically, communal spaces don't really work unless the local authority takes responsibilty - people don't look after them because they're not theirs, and they often become no-go areas with delinquency and drug debris.

I've seen so many documentaries etc about rehousing people after the war and these families were SO grateful and thrilled to have their new homes. People seemed to look after things then - they felt a sense of responsibility that's gone now, because we're told we shouldn't be grateful for anything - it's our RIGHT!!! Sounds OK as a political theory, but in practice it leads to the problems we're talking about here.

You only have to go on MN to know that so many people in social housing do not look after their homes, and councils have to step in, gut these places and re-fit them. I think that's the problem with social housing provision - it's one thing to invest the money to build them, but will tenants care for them (or even improve them, as they did in the past?).

*When I asked an architect about this, he loftily claimed that they were unfit for habition, but pressed further about what he meant, it turned out they mostly just needed bathrooms putting in.

This is so over the top. Parents should be doing this.

Why? we had tooth brushing lessons as children in the 60s at primary school & the importance of them.

Was just tacked on to a lesson now n then.

In an age of almost no nhs dentistry and so many children attending hospital for decay, its a good preventative.

We don't all have parents who behave as they should but you want the their children to suffer.

This is a good point. Also you weren't expected to provide your child with essential books and/,or a computer/tablet to do homework.
Sadly when food and heating are limited some kids are already dipping out and it's not the child's fault.

A lesson once a year (which is still done - at least it is in my child’s school) is not the same as expecting a teacher to brush 20-30 children’s teeth every day. Surely you can see that?

Teachers are not a catch-all for lazy parenting. The more add on jobs teachers are expected to do the worse the teacher recruitment will be. Some teachers are expected to change a nappy already.

@GPTec1 do you mean a yearly lesson or daily brushing?

Teachers are not a catch-all for lazy parenting. The more add on jobs teachers are expected to do the worse the teacher recruitment will be. Some teachers are expected to change a nappy already.

Totally. It's one thing to say that instruction about basic personal care might be necessary in some schools, but it shouldn't be the teacher's job to get physically involved. If deprivation is so severe, then a school nurse (or similar - a member of support staff trained to lead these sessions) needs to be there to do this.

Yes, it's about as likely as pigs flying, but I absolutely stand by the point that even if these interventions are necessary, they shouldn't be the responsibility of the teacher. Honestly, teachers are at breaking point just now and this type of expectation will be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of recruitment and retention.

And once you as a teacher accept the chore of teaching these parenting skills, you also end up with all the responsibility if things go wrong. You can just see parents having a go because their child needs a filling and 'the teacher was supposed to be looking after their teeth!" I can see it now.

Let teachers teach, or they'll all leave the profession.

I think that the growth of IT in education also brings with it massive problems. Once, all you needed was a pen or pencil - not access to the internet and some expensive device.

Homework for young children should never involve IT - they can do that in school.

I've seen IT homework given to young children which basically teaches them nothing. Ask kids to print off a picture of say, Henry VIII and what do they learn? How to type into Google?

Ask them to copy a picture of him and label it and they learn much, much more. And it's more enjoyable.

Yearly is too infrequent & i'm not suggesting any teacher physically brushes a child's teeth, unless that child comes to school with 2 broken arms.

Children get taught lots of things at primary school, inc biology, why can't it occasionally be included as part of this? why we have teeth, the importance in eating a healthy diet to protect them, how fillings are done, why they occur & prevention.

Parents should teach their children a whole range of things but many do not, schools and early years intervention are the only means of picking up these pieces.

I once went to a uk dental school, i was amazed at what i learnt about brushing, when to brush, the angle, never to rinse afterwards, flossing, types of food etc etc
i wish i'd known these things far earlier in life and my mum was very hot on the importance of regular brushing.

Totally up for education on healthy eating etc including impact on teeth

I thibk pp are talking about a policy to actually brush teeth in classrooms