Work for dole

[ReallyTired]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7514513.stm

I think that proposals like these are long over due. Although I think that if you make people work full time for their benefits they won't have time to look for job.

Prehaps they should work three days a week and look for a job two days a week.

There are people who for good reasons cannot work full time, but certainly could do something part time.

[CoteDAzur]

"it makes sense to do all you can to secure your future before embarking on a family"

I agree.

[Twinklemegan]

Point taken. Unfortunately though, I like to comment based on experience rather than talk out of the proverbial (and I'm not aiming that at you personally btw).

There are so many perfect people on Mumsnet who have planned their whole lives down to a tee - I find it really quite humbling.

[CoteDAzur]

I don't see anyone claiming to be perfect. Just that we have all been faced with the same choices of fun vs money and make babies with teenage lover vs study for a degree.

Most use their heads (over their hearts) and go down a path where they will earn a decent living, although that means a career that is less fun than being a kite surf teacher and having kids later than you would like when your first love is holding your hand.

What I find objectionable is the assumption that these people should then support those who made the fun/easy choices. Until the end of their lives.

How is that 'fair'?

I am all for benefits as a safety net - anyone can be abandoned by a spouse, anyone can find themselves on the streets, without a job. However, expecting the world to support you forever because you didn't make the right choices in life is unreasonable.

[findtheriver]

I agree with the principle of what you say, CoteDAzur. Life is all about making choices, decisions, and then alongside that is the stuff that life throws at you anyway. There are very very few people who really live charmed lives. Even people who appear to 'have it all' on the surface, we don't really know what's going on in their lives, how happy they are, what private stresses they're under.
I would have loved to start a family sooner than we did - but the huge financial stress we were under at the time when i really wanted to start having kids meant that we put it on hold. Not an easy decision. That's what life is like. full of tough decisions and all sorts of twists and turns.

[TwoIfBySea]

I planned, or thought I did, and then ex-dh left and not only cleaned me out financially but put me in a deep dark hole of debt. No one sprinkles magic fairy dust to make it all better but bit by bit you have to get out of the situation.

However, that wasn't what I was on for...hughjarssss and twinklemegan regarding your NRP dps. Did they get a leaflet from the CSA this morning regarding the changes? Seems someone was listening. So I hope from the 27th that your situations can improve.

Oh and if my ex took our dts for the weekend then it would make a difference, there are plenty of jobs that would then be opened not only for me but for others. Only ex is not reliable, and it would be far too much like hard work for him, and I know I am not alone in that.

[TwoIfBySea]

Argh, 27th of October I meant!

[Twinklemegan]

What I find difficult CoteDAzur is the implication from your posts that I am one of those expecting you to support me in my choices. But perhaps I'm taking your comments too personally. But I'll have you know that I've never claimed a penny in benefits in my life. Yes I get child tax credit but so what? The little we have, we have through our own hard work. Any apparent chip on my shoulder comes from having my below-average pay cut to subsidise lollypop ladies and binmen.

We have decided that our family's happiness is more important than shedloads of money and I object to being judged for that by people who don't know me. If your last post wasn't aimed at me in any way then I apologise. But I'm sensing many people feel there is virtue in working only if you don't enjoy it.

Some people are genuinely born to do a particular thing (not me, I couldn't hack it in the end). I find it objectionable that those people should be denied the opportunity to earn money doing something they love because of some spurious duty to go and do a job they hate in order to earn loads money for someone else!

[Twinklemegan]

TwoIfBySea - my heart skipped a beat there when I read to expect a letter from the CSA. Every time a brown A5 envelope arrives from anybody, even now, both DH and I feel the fear of God in us.

What's in the letter? I doubt we'll get anything since the case is supposedly closed (which doesn't stop them ringing DH's ex on a regular basis to remind her about the made-up arrears).

[TwoIfBySea]

From 27th October your dp's ex can choose to leave the CSA and make arrangements with your dp for child maintenance. Now I don't know if your dp's ex is on benefits or if this is only for those in reciept of benefits, here is more info.

So she can make your lives a lot easier, and her life consider how many times the CSA f* up. She will get the payments then directly from your dp so it would be in her benefit to do so. And from what you and hughjarssss have said I hope it can work out. I'll be staying with the CSA until ex-dh decides to acknowledge his responsibility.

But I really hope that this makes a difference for you two and your families. I'd be happy if ex-dh just wanted to spend time with dts and be a proper, if not resident, dad.

[Twinklemegan]

Damn, that won't help us at all unfortunately but thanks for the pointer.

DH's ex has never had to go through the CSA, she chose to for reasons known only to her. And now that they've convinced her she's due a massive windfall she thinks they're blardy Father Christmas! The case is supposedly closed now, but she is currently trying to get more money out of DH than he earns by threatening to go back to them. The CSA has truly created a monster in DH's ex!

(DH tried to phone NACSA today but he was out of hours! But we'll get there eventually, I hope.)

[TwoIfBySea]

Ach I had hoped as well. Funny that as soon as I saw it this morning you and hugh were the first people I thought of!

Well, it is a move in the right direction. What did they say they were going to become involved to force your dp to pay something else? As long as he has proof of money going to her then she hasn't a leg to stand on in getting any "back" payments she thinks she can get. So if he can show he has transfered money or something as a regular payment then truthfully she can't get more that way.

[Twinklemegan]

The problem is that there's no proof. This was all years ago when DH was naive about the CSA thing and I hadn't met him. DH was also in and out of work a lot in that time, sometimes he couldn't afford to pay her much. I know he used to buy things for the DCs though, clothes and stuff, but again no proof.

The CSA claims they made an assessment over a decade ago. DH got no letter at that time and they apparently never ever chased it up. It was only with a "routine" case review 5 years later that DH found out about their supposed involvement. The ex hadn't contacted them to chase the money that whole time so I'm guessing she never knew or asked about the assessment either. Yet now, 15 years later with the DCs grown up she decides she wants the money.

[TwoIfBySea]

Wait, so the dcs are how old? I don't see how she would then get back payments? If the CSA didn't contact your dp at the time then how can they get involved?

God useless articles.

Sorry to hear that Twinklemegan and I sound like I am being real nosy but they are wasting their time on things that happened a decade ago while not chasing up current cases properly. Like single mothers all getting tarred with the same brush as the ones who do it "deliberately" it is women like your dp's ex who also give us a bad name as money-grabbing wenches!

[GodzillasBumcheek]

"Just that we have all been faced with the same choices of fun vs money and make babies with teenage lover vs study for a degree."

True, but now i am older and wiser i can't really go back and do things differently can i? I can teach my kids not to do the same thing, and try to live the rest of my life as best i can. Unless someone's got plans for a time machine what else can i do? And even then after 13 years of marriage i'd tell you to feck off rather than change it.

Actually there are probably alot of very naive teenagers who don't think of how to support themselves/their family as they get older. It sure wasn't something on anyone I knew's minds. I was encouraged to pursue a career in art and design even though now i know there is barely any work in that area in our town (some small sign-making companies and thats about it).

Teenagers should not have to make firm decisions about their future until they are mature enough to realise the consequences.
It have been more sensible for people to point out that you need to start on the bottom rung of the career ladder to get the better jobs - and what those bottom rung jobs may lead to. That would have been far more helpful and life-influencing than what i got, which was some teacher saying i had could work in package design and that i needed A-Level Art and Design and blah blah blah (can't even remember now ), and thinking she'd done her job.

[findtheriver]

I agree Godzilla, but then we're all in the same boat aren't we - none of us can turn the clock back.
I'm not sure of the quality of careers advice these days (on the face of it there seems to be a lot more support out there, connexions etc, but then on the other hand you see most teenagers being shoved towards degree courses which is ludicrous!). However, I feel sure it can't be worse than in my day. I don't remember getting ANY sensible advice from anyone, teachers or parents. I went to University and studied a subject I loved to a very high level, but I was motivated more by love of a subject and getting good enough grades to get in, rather than any long term planning.

[CoteDAzur]

Godzilla - Nobody expects you to time travel, but if I may come back to the subject of the thread for a minute, you will soon be expected to actually work for the money you live on.

And I think that is entirely reasonable.

[divastrop]

yes-its reasonable to get paid wages to do a job.

benefits are not wages.if there is work out there which needs to be done and there is nobody to do it,then create real jobs of that work and give the jobs to those on JSA.

[Twinklemegan]

Sorry to continue the hijack, but I need to respond to TwoIfBySea.

I don't think you're being nosy TIBS. It makes a huge change to chat with someone who doesn't just dismiss me as a moaning wife of yet another irresponsible NRP. The children are grown up - one has a family of their own.

The CSA have really got their claws into DH and they won't let go - ditto his ex. It is utterly unfair as he has done the very best he can to comply with them and their impossible demands. It is not an exaggeration to say that DH and I have spent the past 10 years living in fear of the State - I really didn't think that was possible in a civilised country.

And you're right it's appalling the CSA is wasting all this time on people who want to provide for their children. I know as well as the next person that there are many NRPs out there who a genuinely shirking their responbilities, financially and otherwise, yet they are just too much hard work so they're left alone. It makes me sick.

[Twinklemegan]

And btw I agree with Divastrop. I'm amazed anybody doesn't agree.

[GodzillasBumcheek]

Of course it's reasonable to expect to work for the money you live on - but wages and hours need to be fair. To expect people to work 40 hours or more a week doing jobs nobody else wants to do, you should not have to do it on 'how much the government says to need to survive'.

I am not arguing the toss on whether capable benefits claimants should work for their money - just how much they should be working for. And as stated previously by myself and others (thanks divastrop) if there is a job there, and enough money to pay for it to be done - WHY ISN'T IT A WAGE as opposed to 'benefits'.

As for my going 'off topic', i believe that's what conversations do. My recent comments were very on-topic to the posts they replied to, if you would care to back-read.

[Twinklemegan]

But Godzilla, if benefits claimants were to be given a job can't you already hear the indignant exclamations - "how can they just be given a job, I had to work for mine!" I can just see it now. The fact is that all these people who are complaining secretly want to keep people on benefits, and those on the minimum wage for that matter, down there at the bottom where they belong. That is the only possible explanation for the status quo - so many things could be done to help if anybody actually cared.

[CoteDAzur]

My understanding is that the proposed plan of "work for dole" is not full-time work. It is several hours here and there of community work (help the elderly, pick the weeds, etc) that is meant to (1) instill the discipline of going to work in people who haven't worked for a long time, and (2) prevent people from working on the side without declaring it.

It could easily be "jobs that nobody else wants to do", though. Remember, you are supposed to want to leave the benefit system and go get a real job. At the moment, a lot of benefit claimants (including some on this thread) feel that they are better off not working. Introduction of "work for dole" will change that for many, which is a good thing.

One probable outcome will be that shortly after the introduction of this system, many benefit claimants will be applying for the same jobs at the same time. It might be an idea to jump ahead of the crowd and seriously look for a job now.

[GodzillasBumcheek]

Oh, wow, so we aren't seriously looking for a job now?

That must be why DH applies for every litter picking/ bin emptying/ shelf filling job that comes along then. FYI a few hours a week community service would not only be quite enjoyable to some people, but also would hardly prevent anyone from working on the side if they really wanted to. Anyone dishonest enough to do this would just arrange the hours they worked around the community service, which was why i assumed the only sensible course would be working full time, ie: a job.

Twinklemegan - i know!

[CoteDAzur]

I don't know your life in detail, Godzilla. My comment was more in the direction of those who don't work because they wouldn't be better off working than their present sitution as getting the benefits for being SAHMs.

It is safe to assume that quite a lot of benefit claimants will be looking for work with renewed fervor after "work for dole" is introduced, so it might be an idea to jump the cue now.

[Loriycs]

i absolutely agree with CoteDAzur. There are alot of non employed benefit claimants with kids at school and alot of time on their hands. It would good to see some of that time spent helping others in need, ie the elderly (Shopping, gardening, housework etc) or volunteer driving which is much in demand, or by registering as childminders. It would helping others in the community in return for the help they receive.Until they manage to find suitable employment.