Big Society- How is it going to work?

[seekinginspiration]

I'm really confused. I do a bit of volunteering (two hours a week - but only when it fits in with other demands). I have to put paid work and family first so I need to earn some money. I think most mums and even some grannies are in this situation. How is it going to work?

On the minimum wage, there's a loony Tory (Christopher Chope) who keeps trying to introduce private members' bills to abolish the minimum wage. He was responsible for the poll tax under Thatcher. Claimed £140,000 in expenses in one year. Very interesting Wikipedia entry.

Rabbitstew; it's still very early days - don't forget DC has only been PM for 9 months - but he's taking the country in the right direction.

BeenBeta: No!

of course it's a cover for cuts - public sector is getting, what, 28% slashed? people being asked to take voluntary redundancies but even these have to be chosen on basis of cost to the LA or Health Authority etc.

my dh hasn't had a pay rise for 4 years - zilch and now doing job of 4 other people all of whom have been naturally wasted.

the big society is going to have to take the place of workers who the LA etc cannot afford to pay - or who have been outsourced to a badly run, uncaring agency who pays minimum wages.

those of us who have skills built up over years and years of work can't get jobs and youngsters yet again can't get their foot on the work ladder so are getting YOP equivilant apprenticeships.

i remember this all too clearly from the 1980s. Drove me socialism then might drive me abroad now

'Rabbitstew; it's still very early days - don't forget DC has only been PM for 9 months - but he's taking the country in the right direction.'

If you think the right way is privitising everything whilst squeezing as much as possible out of the middle and low-earners (so they can't afford to buy the services now privitised), I suppose you could say so.

I think he's screwing everyone but the wealthy to the wall myself.

I'll be ok.

ds2 has just given me his hoard of ELC toy money.

Might be worth more than the real thing soon

Probably, RMCW - plastic is made out of oil, isn't it? Must be some way of working out how to use it to run the car.

I fully expect the minimum wage to evaporate shortly as it's a massive barrier to this agenda

ScramVonChaubby, I have discovered that five conservative MPs have put forward a bill to achieve this aim

Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Mr Mark Field, Mr David Nuttall and Mr Douglas Carswell, presented a Bill to enable the national minimum wage to be varied to reflect local labour market conditions; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time ; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 March, and to be printed (Bill 29 ).

So yep, I think you might be right

Volunteering Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Mr Philip Hollobone, Mr David Nuttall and Priti Patel, presented a Bill to make provision to promote volunteering;

The very same Tory MPs are putting forward the volunteering bill.

The house of commons website.

The Volunteering Bill? What is that and does it need a bill?

QueenBathsheba- I think there is a case for the minimum wage to vary regionally as living costs vary widely. Although such a regional variation would be extremely hard to implement.

Yes apparently they plan to conscript volunteers.

Huddspur, I would agree if I believed that they intended to offer higher wages, I think this will open up the way for lower wages in certain sectors. IMO, although I am considering writing to some of the MPs and asking directly.

I think some regions eg London would see an increase in the minimum wage if it were regional whilst other regions may see it decrease. The problem I think is that presumably you'd then have to vary welfare eg JSA/Tax credits regionally and that might end up being a bureaucratic nightmare.

One of the MPs backing abolition of the minimum wage (this is the second attempt) is Peter Bone - according to a Guardian report last year

' In 1995 the Daily Mirror described Bone as Britain's "meanest boss" when he defended paying a 17-year-old trainee 87p an hour to work for his travel company. '
They are like Victorian factory owners'

hudd, are you for real ? the minimum wage is crap even if you lived in the "cheapest" part of the UK, it's already a poverty wage.

Screw them to hell. I don't care if they try to starve us, I'll not do a bit of work for their shite idea to force us to work for free whilst breaking our backs to pay their pensions so they can tell us we don't deserve the same because they're them and we're us.

Clegg, that bastard excuse for a man who never had to work a day in his life thanks to Daddy, or Cameron, a Thatcherite in sheep's clothing anyone who thought otherwise was foolish.

They can go straight to hell with their clueless idea.

They crush our protests, so this is my form, other than the ballot, which will be SNP come May, of civil disobedience.

I wouldn't pee on either of these excuses for leaders if they were on fire, I truly wouldn't.

So I'll not be supporting their 'Big Society' until they walk the walk first: do their job for free, they don't need the money, and roll back duties and taxes so we, the working public, can keep more of what we earn to pay for all these services they cut back.

As for their deficit that is the making of their fat cat mates, I couldn't care less.

It is not my fault or my problem.

If they try to make it so, then I'll leave, and I'll take all three of my British children with me and teach them this is a poisoned place where they are nothing but dogs.

Round of applause for expat.

This is not about volunteering, many people already volunteer. It's about creating a low/no cost workforce for the benefit of private industry.

It makes me weep to see the extent to which this government is willing to sell its people down the river. We will, as a result, leave our children a profoundly less safe and secure world than the one we were born into.

Well said expat.This whole thing stinks.Volunteering is a personal choice and comes naturally to some people.WHo is going to decide who has the skills to do what?How much will it cost to CRB check and reference everyone?FGS its a nightmare

It doesn't make me weep, unfortunately - they are being true to type and enough people voted for them to enable them to claw their way to power. David Cameron is a Tory, after all. What made me weep was Tony Blair pretending to be a socialist. I agree, however, that, being very right wing, they are feathering the nests of the rich and powerful at absolutely everyone else's expense. They aren't even trying to hide it - they think unqualified, voluntary labour and chronic underfunding are good enough for the majority and are happy to say it. It's quite a consistent message.

Forgot the all important unqualified, FREE labour - forget the voluntary bit, that's not too important...

In fact, it's great that so many people are being made redundant - they can now do for no salary and no employment protection what they used to be paid for, without being able to demand pay rises. Instead, if they don't do what they are told, they can have all benefits taken off them. No wage rise inflation that way.

?How much will it cost to CRB check and reference everyone?

Well yes that's another point Dave's decided he's not going to bother, good job we'll all be at home with our children otherwise goodness knows who'd have their hands on them.

Epatinscotland

Well said

I think there is a link between these two Bills and the end result will be that public services will be just the first sector to see unpaid labour replacing paid work.

What next?

We are in an area of low living costs comparatively and high unemployment but minimum wage will still 8not* get you away from a housing claim or allow you to rent anything in a decent condition.
By decent I mean preferably double glazed and insulated so one can stay warm (our rented home ahs neither and we just paid off an extra £400 heating from winter, it's 4 degrees today but heating has to stay off now), something ready to live in rather than a slum landlord's joke.

One of the new porposals that scares me most in terms of pulling up the ladder is that they will demand a business makes a minimum of 24 hours of minimum wage (whatever that will be- I remember the days where I worked for £1.50 an hour, not again thank you) in order to be exempt from working-for-benefits or be able to claim any state supprt: people are assuming there will be a start up time allowance but actually there has been no confirmation of that. For many the ebst way out of poverty or difficult circumstances is to set up alone but I fear my own DH was one of the least to have had that chance.

Other problems lurking include extending the 24 hour rule to all couples so if you are disabled or a carer and your partner works part time through caring or just job availability your family will lose access to Tax Credits; the Government's official stance on Carer's Allowance which currently is 'we don't know what to do about it', the whole nightmare that is the impending ATOS involvement in DLA (anyone thinking the consultation- open until the 18th now if anyone is willing- is yet to report should be aware that ATOS have apparently already been hired)...... the gact that no continuation of HRP has been promised for carers under Universal Credit causing massive old age poverty.......

I am lucky; we're poor for a short time but we are both graduates who will eb able to juggle within a few eyars. I grew up on an estate though and hate to think what will become of so many people who have tried hard. My Brother In Law got his notice two weeks ago, poor man just getting sorted after beating what they thought was a terminal condition at 30; Dad is having to work as a cleaner at 70 with a disability because his pension was lost via a loophole and he cannot face another mouthful about not being bothered to provide for himself from the claims woman at the council..... if we could emigrate anywhere suitable (would ahve to be English speaking due to DS's disability and nowhere suitable would take us becuase of the disability) we'd take the business as soon as we both qualified and run. I understand anyone who does that.

But like ExPat for the first time in my life since I was 11 I am not volunteering for anyone: not a chance. I am not being part of people's livelihoods being lost or the development of a system that puts a complete end to social mobility. For all people loathe TB (and I am not a fan either) under his years I managed to get off the estates and through university; that's something I can see ending soon.