Welsh government overreaching now fines for working

[justasking111]

Well this has caused dismay you must try to work from home your employer must enable this from Monday, your vehicle stopped £60 fine, employer 1k fine.

You'll be fined if you live in Wales but work in England

@110APiccadilly

I am possibly the person who is least keen on Drakeford in the whole world, but I do want to be fair to him. The son who is in jail was adopted, I think at an older age. It's possible that he had been through so much trauma by that point that out was not possible to help him. It's possible Drakeford could have done more to help him, but I'm uncomfortable with blaming Drakeford for his son's actions.

The child grew up in a singularly odd household which didn't help

The man's a nutter!

@Thickasmincepie

But Drakeford isn't keeping the Welsh safer, if we basically spend our working and social lives in England. He's just ensuring we spend more money over the border.

Quite.

I was being ironic. The man is unhinged.

His son is a convicted rapist!! Wow, I've just googled!!

[quote Whathefisgoingon]@VikingOnTheFridge If this was law in England, I would simply report my employer. It would be a non issue.[/quote]
What do you think would happen if your employer carried on regardless and you were stopped on the way to work?

@TinselTitsAndGlitteryBits

Completely batshit crazy.

The knock on effect it will have is huge too. Taxi drivers, cafés, newsagents, small businesses... all who will have no business because he's trying to force everyone to work from home. Is there a financial package in place?

It's honestly quite frightening, and won't make a singular jot of difference either.

And then he will be forced to DO MORE because people aren't obeying his orders property.

Bloody nutter 😡

*But unless there is an actual definition of what are and are not legally acceptable reasons to go to work, how can anyone, be they the police, the courts or the individual, decide if the person 'could' have worked from home?

Yes, laws are open to interpretation, but there still have to be clear parameters. You simply can't fine people because 'in your view', they 'could' have worked from home.

Obviously this silly 'law' doesn't bother you, but generally speaking, would you be happy to be fined because of the subjective 'views' of the individual police officer who pulled you up?*

As I said, individuals have to use their common sense and hope that police use theirs. It's how many laws are enforced.

For example, the Public Order Act doesn't list out what behaviour does or doesn't cause alarm or distress. That too is obviously subjective but just because there is a spectrum of possible behaviour, it doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws against bad behaviour.

I'm perfectly happy for the police to use their judgement because
the alternative is to live in a nightmarish 'computer says no society'.
If you tried to define it precisely, you would get silly results so it is best left to people to make a judgement on a case by case basis.

If you have any reasonable excuse to go to work, you will be fine. My guess is that there will be very few fines given out and they will be to people who admit they could work from home but chose not to.

Well no, the alternative is to simply not have legislation that allows and requires police officers to make a judgement about what counts as necessary in jobs they may know absolutely nothing about.

@Winebottle. In my experience police don't just interpret laws themselves! That way lies chaos! There's guidance given from somewhere as to what does or does not constitute an offence. I can't really see a police officer going into a company and dictating that the company need to send all their staff home even though the managers say it would collapse their business.

Yes, police use their judgement but that comes from experience of being in certain situations. Here the police have no experience. We saw examples of police officers making their own judgements in the first lockdown and it undermined public confidence. You can appeal fines in court but it costs money and as usual poorer people will be those who feel they can't afford to do that and will just pay their fine.

I understand why the WG believe this is right and I support them trying to do their best to control the virus, but fining people in this way just seems like using a wrecking ball to crack an egg.

As I said, individuals have to use their common sense and hope that police use theirs. It's how many laws are enforced.

That's not true at all.

The job of a police officer is to enforce the law, not fine people because of their subjective ideas of 'common sense'. Yes, there is always rooms for interpretation of those laws, but in order to interpret a law, it has to be written down. This is not the case here.

For example, the Public Order Act doesn't list out what behaviour does or doesn't cause alarm or distress.

Well, that's just nonsense.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/contents

If you have any reasonable excuse to go to work, you will be fine.

What's 'reasonable' to one person is not to another. Just look at MN. You have one person saying they can work perfectly well at home, it's just that their control freak boss insists on bringing them in because he's on a power trip. Said boss might say instead that staff are not productive WFH and that there have been complaints from clients. So who's being 'reasonable'? And how can a police officer make a decision when he/she is not in possession of the full facts?

It's a ludicrous 'law'.

"you have any reasonable excuse to go to work, you will be fine. My guess is that there will be very few fines given out and they will be to people who admit they could work from home but chose not to."

Even the part above is problematic as surely it then falls to why they chose to go into work. For example their employer said they could work at home but they choose to go into work for mental well-being etc. it's just not up to the police to determine whether that's unlawful or not. That should even be a question.

The police showed in previous lockdowns that using their common sense wasn't an option as they issued fines which were found to be unlawful.

And in fairness to the police, they are not exactly short on things to do or investigate. Actual crimes are committed every day. It's just a waste of their resources to even consider an ill thought out "law"

I'm perfectly happy for the police to use their judgement

But what insight would your average police have on this topic?

What do they understand about employee productivity and how it's measured? Will they be looking at records? Would they know how to interpret them?

Will they be comparing revenue records across the lockdown / opening up periods? Will they be talking to company accountants about how all that's measured and how indicative it is of business performance?

Will they be talking to the businesses' clients? Their competition outside of Wales? To understand the impact. Will they be interviewing staff about the mental health implications?

Of course not. They are entirely unqualified to make judgements in this area.

I had never heard of Mark Drakeford pre-Covid. He is clearly insane. I feel sorry for the people of Wales with him in charge, although Boris is a twat too.