To ask for opinions on the 'Get Britain Working' white paper?

[Locutus2000]

Now it's out in full?

I think the problem with this type of initiative it's that it is usually done to get headlines and to appear to be 'tough' on the unemployed.

It does nothing to address the root causes.

Covid, long NHS waiting lists, overstretched mental health services and the breakdown of the social contract (people who have jobs still struggling with the cost of living and being unable to buy a home) are all going to have an impact on people's ability and willingness to work.

I have a job and I have a long term health condition that is classed as a disability. Some of the barriers I have faced in my career:

• employers being reluctant to employ people with physical or mental health issues
• employers being reluctant to offer home/flexible/part-time/jobshare working
• employers not wanting to take on employees who had to take time off sick. If you have a disability/long term health condition it is often inevitable, no manner how well you manage your condition, that you might end up needing time off work
• lack of understand of disabilities and mental health issues in general.

Unless Labour also addresses employers' attitudes, it will remain difficult for people like me to get and stay in a job.

It would be good to have some incentives for employers to take more disabled people on but also to get tougher on discrimination and to consider removing the right of potential employers to ask for employees' sickness records, because that is always going to put people with long term health condition at a disadvantage.

Basically, I want to see some real, long term action.

Not the usual let's have more work coaches and put more pressure on people.

In itself that will achieve very little.

Also, I work for an organisation that support homeless people with complex needs of all ages.

They have a variety of issues, including mental health issues, having been through the care system and alcohol/drug addiction. Unless they can sort out these issues first they will remain completely unemployable.

Well, I wouldn't be hiding plans to go after disabled and sick people underneath a lot of unworkable guff that sounds good for a start.

The truth is that what needs to happen is a societal shift and a lot of time and resources poured in to people from an early age.

But the amount of money that would cost would make any party that wanted to do it completely unelectable.

Just look at what suggesting farmers get taxed has led to. You think the public is going to go for the probably billions it would realistically take to sort this shit out?

You think I'm joking?
I can bloody see it happening.
Nothing would surprise me at this point.

Didn't the tories suggest something vaguely workhouse-esque a few years back?

I don't think people realise just how bad things are going to get.

@Plastictrees
Thank you for your understanding, kindness and thoughtful words.

I do have my husband, even if he off at work ten hours a day. He helps me get cleaned up, sets me up with some food and drinks before leaving each day. He does most of everything I used to do before I became unwell. I try to keep my needs to a minimum, help with small things I can do sitting down and not make a mess but I fear it's taking a heavy toll on him now. He tells me I'm not a burden, when I say it, and that he loves me no matter what but I can see he's suffering too. It's rarely just the sick or disabled person that suffers. I dread to think what would happen if something happened to him. I don't see me surviving without him. I feel so lucky that I'm not alone when I know so many are. There are people with unwell/disabled children and other relatives. People run ragged by caring responsibilities, who are technically fit and well but who are unable to work because there's no more time and energy in the day. The government wants to demonise them with their label of "economically inactive" too. If they were not doing all the caring they do, the state would have to pay and it would be considerably more costly than any tax they could pay on a part time minimum wage job to offset the costs.

It's all just so shortsighted and callous. It smacks of punishment of the vulnerable to appease the baying mob of heartless egotists who have oversimplified the problems faced by anyone not them. People who, as @TomatoSandwiches has said, could be in the position they so look down upon in mere moments.

I myself was 100%, a bit overweight, but healthy as a horse...until I wasn't. Having experienced it, starting with barely a smidgeon of imperceptible high blood pressure, that downwards health spiral is a bastard I wouldn't wish on another living soul. The grief at every step, the abilities you lose, nasty drugs you have to take forever that inevitability have their cost of further illness or loss of function, more grief, depression at feeling little more than a burden to your loved ones, suicidal ideation as you feel the loss of your former self. Then somewhat learning to live with your "new normal" (oh, how I hate that phrase, however apt), only to find the bloody Prime Minister, of all people, thinks you are a useless piece of shit who needs to die. Join to that, all the other party members and a large cohort of the general public, who not only want you to die but to preferably starve and freeze to death from poverty in the process. It's not been a good week but the few people on here who have a heart has helped.

This is a tangent, but I think the reason for the uptick in diagnosis of certain issues, especially ADHD, is because the nature of work and education has changed. If you're working on a production line or in some other manual, repetitive job, it's unlikely to be an issue unless severe. Compare that to a job that requires you to focus an a computer screen and read stuff.

Another tangent. I'm in NZ which certainly has issues of its own. But it's a common complaint among UK immigrants living here just how awful dealing with UK businesses/ government is compared to NZ. Staff who don't know their jobs. Staff who don't answer simple questions or who try to bullshit you. Staff who can't spell in emails. Staff who flat out ignore you. Staff not engaging brains basically. I guess my point is, how can it be hard to find work when so many people in work so their jobs so very badly.

What is meant by the government 'going after ' people who are not on benefits but not working "enough?"
They can't do anything if that person isn't actually on benefits or asking to claim anything ?

Exactly this. It’s always those who have been afforded more privileges than others who take the “they’re just lazy” approach.

Which is ironic because it is very lazy thinking on their part.

I completely agree. Ill health and disability could happen to any of us, however rather than acknowledging that it is far easier to ‘other’ and demonise people. Often people do not like to accept their own vulnerability and potential powerlessness, and so much of our health is out of our control. Rather than approaching these issues with curiosity and kindness, the ‘benefit scroungers’ trope comes out in full force with ridiculous claims straight from the Daily Fail. Disability and health discrimination is rife. Some people will never be able to work and I want to live in a society that doesn’t villainise vulnerable groups and force people into jobs which will just make them more ill. Other people will be able to work, with adjustments and adaptations. We need flexibility and a person-centred approach, not more meaningless box ticking and setting people up to fail.

I could rant on about this forever! I am disgusted by the conflation of mental health and employment too, and the idea that work is the solution for poor mental health. This was part of a massive initiative in England in the early/mid 2000s with the introduction of IAPT for this very purpose - improve people’s mental health so they can get back to work and improve the economy. There is so much wrong with this, and the fact that mental health centres are now often based in Job Centres is dystopian to me. As a psychologist, I will never stop bleating on about how fundamentally wrong this is. I will also never stop advocating for my patients who are repeatedly denied PIP and made to go through re-traumatising assessments which are de-humanising and humiliating.

I am so glad you’ve got your husband. I am sure you would do the same for him. Take care of yourself.

@TomPinch I’m inclined to agree re ADHD. Having to sit still in front of a screen trying to concentrate on text for eight hours a day can be very challenging with an attention deficit. I did a course recently which was about 40% reading and 60% practical work. I excelled in the practical work and looked forward to it every day, but whenever it came to the reading it was like it was like I’d stalled. I was physically agitated and wanted to cry.

@Plastictrees great post, agree entirely. And thank you for the work that you do. It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society, as Krishnamurti wisely said.

I really don't like being the disagreable person here, but please look at the picture you are displaying from the POV of a very small company. The changes in the recent budget will fall like a sharpened axe on small family businesses. Additional employers' NIC and a higher minimum wage. Those changes cut up from the bottom not down from the top. It means that no small business is going to give your 16yo DC a shot because the NIC start threshold is too low at £5k per year and the pay threshold is too high for someone who isn't immediately useful. If I have to pay £12.50 ph to a 16 yo who needs their hand held plus NIC on any earnings over £5k, then you have loaded my payroll costs. The only reply an SME has left is to refuse to employ young and inexperienced people. I think this is an own goal

No opinion one way or the other. I have never read a White Paper in my life and have no plans to do so now.

Sometimes @FelixtheAardvark , it provides information that might shape how you plan your life. I will concede that I am live interested however. But a degree of engagement is usually useful.

There are more job seekers than job vacancies, so taking people off of sickness benefits is going to add to this pool of people already scrabbling for jobs.

£240 million to transform the (mental) health system, repurpose jobcentres, reduce economic inactivity? I think someone in the government needs a maths lesson!

No, I have heard all this baloney before. I do like the nod to the Conservative slogan 'Labour Isn't Working' which announced the start of Thatcherism in 1978. I wish there was something new, something innovative in this paper.

I would, however, really like my sons, who have complex mental health issues, were able to find gentle employment that can give them the independence and self esteem that they need. I fear they will never work, or that they will be offered 'apprenticeships' in charity shows and sent on 'Employability' courses at their local colleges until they are deemed too old to bother with.

I think I read something about more apprenticeships being offered, and more skills building initiatives. It is likely to be the same old thing as it has been for the last half a century.

I am sorry to be so sceptical, but the government can recycle this particular Shite Paper.

Stupid typing errors 'I would like it if my sons ... were'

and 'shops' (I give up!)

I would actually like to know where these jobs are going to come from.

Luton Vauxhall closing, Smithfield's closing - these are only the beginning

Part of the problem is that people generally pay less tax nowadays over the years than before. Most of our grandparents would have started work aged 14 and started paying tax. Nowadays it is very common that people don’t start paying tax until they start their first full time employment after university when they are 22/23 or older so we can easily loose 10 years of tax payments which multiplied across the population adds up but I don’t know how we can change this.

That's a very good point though on the other hand tax rates have risen, mostly via indirect taxes such as VAT. I think the tax take in most Western countries now as a share of GDP is higher now than it was fifty years ago. The reason is spending on health and pensions, which has ballooned over that time.

I think I read something about more apprenticeships being offered, and more skills building initiatives. It is likely to be the same old thing as it has been for the last half a century

I hope they would be proper apprenticeships that lead to advanced qualifications and/or a trade. Not more of the bullshit ones out there that offer lvl 2 qualifications over the course of a year, and want you there 37.5hrs a week for less than £4ph.

I've just come across the DWP's job website while searching for remote jobs. There are 186 'fully remote' jobs listed, around 90% of which are 'mystery shopper' (so not remote), online tutoring and driving instructor (so not remote) jobs. Then around 5% are telesales and delivery driving (not remote), ~2% personal assistant jobs for people with complex needs (so again, not remote) and then ~3% viable WFH jobs (but all of those are quite skilled and specialised).

But apparently people with disabilities need to work from home to 'do their duty'

So I went looking for the number of vacancies at the moment. These are the stats from the ONS. The trend is firmly down and I don't see this changing anytime soon.

• The estimated number of vacancies in the UK in August to October 2024 was 831,000, a decrease of 35,000, or 4.0%, from May to July 2024.
• Vacancy numbers decreased on the quarter for the 28th consecutive period in August to October 2024, with vacancies decreasing in 16 of the 18 industry sectors.
• Total estimated vacancies were down by 130,000 (13.6%) from the level of a year ago in August to October 2024, although they remained 35,000 (4.4%) above their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic January to March 2020 levels.
• The number of unemployed people per vacancy was 1.8 in July to September 2024, up by 0.2 from 1.6 in the previous quarter (April to June 2024).

But that figure includes..
Every person at university who isn't also working
Every person who has retired before state pension age
Every person who chooses not to work such as SAHMs, multi millionaires on a life of leisure etc.
These people are not claiming benefits yet are still included in the figures.
Then you add in people in prison, people signed off long term sick, people with disabilities too severe to be able to work etc. Only then are you left with the people that these initiatives are aimed at.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was getting at.

I expect the number of people who could or should be helped into work are a tiny fraction of that nine million.

I wouldnt trust the NHS with the assisted dying bill because of their fondness of unsafe discharges for elderly people.