Sorry if this has been done before, but is this government just as horrible as I think they are?

[headfairy]

the government are choosing now, when there is rising unemployment, to close Remploy factories because they aren't cost effective. They're justifying their sheer nastiness by saying they can use the money more effectively to help disabled people find jobs on the open market. Er... what jobs?

coupled with cuts to disability benefits are the Tories seriously trying to put all disabled people on to the streets?

Or am I missing something here? Instead of a Tobin tax, or a mansion tax, they're going after those least able to fight for themselves for what amounts to a fraction of the deficit. I'm speechless.

The Remploy closures started about 2008 when the workforce halved so it was the last government that started the process. The 'Access to Work' scheme has apparently been very successful helping about 37,000 people per year. For the same money that keeps 2300 people employed at Remploy Liz Sayce, from disability rights charity Radar who made the recommendation to the government, says that another 35,000 could be assisted.

Remploy closure began in 2006, so the last administration is equally "horrible".

Major charities, including Scope, have supported this policy. The funds aren't being cut. They will continue to be used to assist disabled people to join the workforce, but in ways other than keeping open the factories which are making a loss. If Radar is correct, then many people stand to gain from this move. Though I agree it's crap for those directly affected in the short term.

'Sorry if this has been done before'

Unfortunately, it has been done before. New Labour did it before.

This was when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister

'She was one of thousands who lost their jobs when the government decided to close 30 Remploy factories employing exclusively disabled people earlier this year, something that Thatcher even at the height of privatisation left untouched.'

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2008/sep/19/gordonbrown.tradeunions

I personally think that Thatcher was right to support Remploy.

it matters not what party chooses to do this

it does NOT lessen the utter shitness of what IS being done right now.

Quite frankly that counter argument is not a counter argument at all.

new labour /old tories

Rich people getting richer - spinning the media to make it your fault.

I did wonder if there was more to it, because it would seem this government would be committing suicide if it carried on like this.

Do the Access to Work schemes actually work? Esp in times when there are so few jobs around in general. The Shaw trust says 50% of disabled people who are able to work are unemployed, against just 8.4% of able bodied people

'it matters not what party chooses to do this'

It does matter. We only effectively have a choice between two parties. If you make the mistake of thinking that this party is more "horrible" than the party who did this first, when even Margaret Thatcher did not do this, then you will get more of the same and your short-sightedness will be to blame.

See smallwhitecat I heard them talking about this on the radio this morning and I wondered. I don't have any experience of disabilities, so I don't know whether it is better to subsidise employers like Remploy to allow disabled people to work and avoid competing on the open job market, especially when times are tough.

Claig, I know you're no lover of the left :o but this government has got quite a track record of cutting benefits to disabled and vulnerable people, so it wouldn't be beyond the realms of expectation for them to go further when making cuts.

it is being used as a counter argument claig. It is not my short sightedness, please watch how you phrase things.

the issue isn't who did it first but that it is being done at all.

'the issue isn't who did it first but that it is being done at all'

but it was being done in 2006-8 as well and I think it was wrong then too as I think it is wrong now too. Why was it being done in 2006-2008 and why is it continuing now and why did Thatcher not do it?

''the issue isn't who did it first but that it is being done at all'

The issue is not 'that it is being done', the issue is 'why is it being done?', and for that you have to look to the past.

I think that Remploy offered job security. That is vital, so that people are not at the whim of the market and can lose their jobs like the woman who lost her job 4 weeks before Gordon Brown wrote to her. I suspect that that is why Thatcher did not touch Remploy. I suspect she understood the importance of job security, familiarity and job satisfactiion for Remploy employees and that is why she supported Remploy.

'Phil Davies, the organiser of the Remploy campaign, has told ministers repeatedly that Remploy factories are specially adapted places where severely disabled people can be given full support so they can make a useful contribution to society by working. Age Concern tells me they had to let Tracy go because they could not give her the specialist one-to-one support she needed in the charity shop.'

I bet Thatcher understood all that fully. So why did things change?

Yes, Thatcher - always motivated by the idea of other people's job security, familiarity and job satisfaction, that was her!

What is the answer though? How do you create an economy in which disability is less of a barrier to employment? What needs to be done?

''The issue is not 'that it is being done', the issue is 'why is it being done?', and for that you have to look to the past.'

what are we looking to the past for? becuase in all honesty on these threads its usually blame. not explaination. you yourself claig - didn't expand.

"e Disability Minister, Maria Miller, said that the multimillion pound subsidy to Remploy could be better spent on other programmes to help the disabled into work. She highlighted figures showing that the annual cost of supporting a Remploy worker was £25,000 a year, as compared to the £2,900 cost of the Access to Work scheme, which gives technology and assistance to firms employing disabled workers."
from here

the operative word there is could

not will
or should

i could ride a pony naked and covered in peanut butter

but i wont

oh an i never have - just for context to bring you a history and clarity

I think she was using the figure to show that if you multiplied the current cost of those in the loss-making factories by the per capita cost, then divided it by the per capita cost of those on Access to Work, you get approximately 35,000 people. It might not produce exactly that number, but that is a huge difference in the numbers who can be helped from this pot of money depending on how you choose to spend it. The important thing is that the funding will continue. There is no cost-cutting here.

' becuase in all honesty on these threads its usually blame. not explaination'

Yes these threads are usually all about blame of this government, of how "horrible" they are. And they do deserve blame for some policies. But many of the things that they are blamed for (as if they were the instigators) are only continuations of what has gone before, what happened in the past.
To understand why things are happening now, you have to understand the past.

Do you seriously think that Maria Miller was the first to think this
'Maria Miller, said that the multimillion pound subsidy to Remploy could be better spent on other programmes to help the disabled into work'

Could this be why Labour did it too?

Do you agree with this? Why did Thatcher not do this? Did she not agree?

Will you STOP banging on about Thatcher? She's been out of the picture for twenty-two whole years and we've had four PMs since and two changes of administration. The world has moved on exponentially and I fail to see why you're fixated on history. The 1980s have no bearing whatsoever on whether Remploy should or shouldn't close down - it's a current decision made in the context of 2012.

'it's a current decision made in the context of 2012'

what absolute rubbish? Don't you realise that it was happening under New Labour in 2006-2008 also? It's not to do with now this present moment in time, but is a policy that has been in practice over several years.

Jesus Christ died 2000 years ago, yet the Pope hasn't forgotten Him. Thatcher was a legendary conservative leader with her heart in the right place, that is why I mention her and her support for Remploy. I thought you were supposed to be a conservative, I know you don't don't like the Daily Mail, but don't you like Thatcher too?

'The 1980s have no bearing whatsoever on whether Remploy should or shouldn't close down'

Of course they do and so do the 1940s-1980s. Remploy was set up in the 1940s and your talk of "close down" is only over teh last few years.

Why? What's changed? Why didn't the great Thatcher or Wilson or Heath or Callaghan or any of the others talk of "close down"?

Claig, whatever the arguments about Thatcher, what happened in 2006 and whether JK Rowling's next book will be any good, the fact is that it's happening again now - a time of massive job losses, so the open jobs market will be a seriously competitive place, even more so if you have a disability.

As far as I can tell from reading around, Remploy provided opportunities for people who's disabilities were quite severe and who would struggle in the open market. Of course disabled people who are perfectly able in other respects would prefer to work in the open market.. Like smallwhitecat's example, there's absolutely no reason why a wheelchair user can't be a receptionist. She can answer the phone, welcome guests, direct people to the right place etc etc... I think Remploy helps people for whom work in the open market is much much more difficult.

Many Remploy factories use a 30 minute hour system, because many of their employees are unable to work a full hour. No other employer will make such concessions.

who knows why Thatcher didn't close Remploy down... maybe it was something that touched her heart (she must have had one somewhere in there)

headfairy, I agree with you. I wish they would carry on subsidising Remploy.

Can't you see what has changed? Can't you see the progressive thinking behind it? It was under Labour that the change in direction was made after all.

Thatcher didn't do it because she didn't think that way.