What ideas and suggestions would you like us to pass on to the new government?

[Carriemumsnet]

We are meeting with government in the next few weeks and we'd like to pick your brains. Obviously times are tight and most government departments will be anxious to find ways to increase efficiency. Do you have any thoughts about how things could be made simpler and easier, perhaps by using Mumsnet to implement services or offer support currently offered in other ways? Are there particular services that you think warrant special protection and should be ring-fenced? Or any particular ones that you feel are badly implemented/ wasteful? How could Mumsnet work with government to make life easier for parents? For example should Mumsnet be promoted by Midwives and Health Visitors to parents when they leave hospital or have their final visit? Could Mumsnet be used as a job-share hub? We know you'll have lots of ideas and suggestions, so please post them here and we'll try and pass on as many of them as we can.

Thanks, MNHQ

gaelic not at you, wider really: ther are people on here who advocate scrapping TC's for part time work.

IKWYM wrt to jobs under 16 hours: we know that people in work find it easier to get betetr jobs and more hours so why place barriers in their way?

Are there really? What rot! Like you don't still need childcare to do part-time work!

I know gaelic.

Dh was amde redundant and is studying FT: he can't do anything toehr than PT work (he ahs to help with out 2 sn kids as well- SW expresswed concern at amount he is doing, luckily dh locves it)

Would it be betetr for us not to ahve that independent soure of income to turn into FT? Think not!

The 16 hr thing is ridiculous. It should be based on income alone. What bloody difference does it make if a job is 15hrs?

Mine is to PLEASE, somehow, ring-fence monies for more police, firepeople and nurses.

No more HIP grant, CTC, Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners living abroad or who have taxable income over £30,000K.

Can we have a system to means-test benefit that is parallel to the tax system so we can means-test more benefits?

Please don't cut off child benefit at 13. That makes no sense. What are they supposed to do, get a part-time job?

Cut it off at £50,000/annum income if you have to, before you do that.

Oh, and, btw, 'children' often wear adult-sized clothes and shoes. Keep hiking VAT on that and it'll be a real struggle for many to clothe them.

Finally, when you raise the personal tax threshold, but hike NI and VAT, you leave the working poor just as bad off, if not worse. Please don't assume they're too stupid not to realise that.

Slightly similar here. DH is the main carer and has been unable to find a local job (where he's not been turned down for lack of experience or being over-qualified) that offers more than 16 hours on a consistent basis. So for a while to keep his sanity he worked 15 hours a week for bugger all once childcare costs were paid. It was unskilled gardening work though, and as he suffers from chronic arthritis he was basically told by the GP to give it up or else. So we're stuck on one income for the forseeable future.

The drop out rates for healthcare students (pharmacy/physiotherapy/nurses/radiographers) will be alot less if you pay us a wage to train rather then a bursary. We work 36 hours a week on placements, some of my colleagues recieve £200 a month for this. We are also frontline services, we take the x-rays (albeit supervised), the student nurses take the temperatures and care for the patients, do we not deserve a pay that reflects this? If we are waged then we can recieve working tax credits, you'd loose far less students and it will make the £30,000 a year it costs to educate each one of us a worthwhile cost as we will all then work in the NHS rather then move on somewhere else.
Alot of students work to supliment their bursary so they are tired.

PLEASE SALARY HEALTCARE STUDENTS!

And while we're on the subject of students, please drop that ridiculous target to get 50% of young people to go to university. Since when did even 20% of jobs in this country require degree level skills (unless you count the three Rs of course, since they don't seem to be taught at school any more).

"Does no one else have a problem with an independent website being used to promote Govt messages and services?"

Which independent website are you talking about?

Well yes, you have a point there Claig.

I would really, really, really like more jobs to be part-time/job shares (love the idea of using MN as a hub!). I would dearly love to go back to work, doing something I am actually good at, you know, using some of those skills that a Government dept spent so much time and money training me in. But there are so few part-time jobs (apart from possibly in London) that it just seems an impossible task. And I don't mean the right to ask for your job to be more flexible, that means you have to be in a job to be able to do that in the first place.

Please don't cut NHS Direct, I am a big fan! I have lived and currently still live in a country where the only way you can get this sort of out-of-hours advice is to pay through the nose for it. We have always had an excellent response from them, whether it be silly worries about our first baby or me panicking when I was bleeding early in my 2nd pregnancy. Here, I just dread things going wrong during the nighttime hours as I honestly would not know who to call.

Finally, I would be wary of promoting Mumsnet as anything more than it is. Most people who post on here are not trained, they are just giving their opinions. I would hate to think what would happen if someone followed some bad advice and then came back to sue. There are some very opiniated people on MN, but just because there are some who shout louder than others, doesn't always mean they are right.

Please don't have an official link with the govt. We are much more powerful remaining free of ties.

Stop wasting money on buearacracy. form filling and box ticking is stifling health and education, police work and the fire service. Stop sending people who work in these services on stupid "diversity" training courses.

Be bloody careful with cgt. It could bite you on the bum if private rentals are pulled out of the market.

Business rates are extortionate and crippling small businesses.

Stop local authorities being all pomp and ceremony and remind them they work for us, not the other way round.

Simplify tax, Gordon Brown made the rules so complex that hmrc don't understand them. Consider a flat tax. Just think how much money could be saved.

There isn't a problem in this country that doesn't relate to an overcrowded population. Please don't be afraid of looking at immigration.

'The 16 hr thing is ridiculous. It should be based on income alone. What bloody difference does it make if a job is 15hrs? '

true

best job I wver had was 15 hours and I had to pack it in when dh had to take a pay cut to get more training.

exp- did you mean ctc or ctf? if ctc what should replace it? ctf i totally agree with: they can have ours back.

Oh and before you hit all the little people please can you look at trident please?

Ta.

This morning we are told that breakfast clubs (the only form of morning care in many rural parts, allthoug our achool refuses to have one) and social services will be cut.

Cutting breakfast clubs will force single aprents out of work and make it difficult for alot of other parents- nice idea to work around each otehr but not so easy to find the job and IMO does place a marriage at higher risk isf you never see each otehr 9from personal experience).

Cutting social services support to the elderly and disbaled is cruel. When a carer gets less than £60 then it will force people to hand their relatives over to care earlier on in their decline, costing ££££££££££,. It certainly is the case that if anyting happened to DH my aim to care for ds3 here until I simply cannot would be replaced by the location of a state provided palcement when he is about 20 through necessity and at a silly cost. not my ideal but someone has to provide for the otehrs and it would be me, benefits system just doesn't cover it.

There's an idea ctually:

state care costs around 2k per week inclusingc are apckage provision.

Make carer's allowance eligible for TC;s as work and more peopel woudl be able to keep their lvoed ones with them and that's a win-win surely?

Agree with various points already made really.

Don't like the idea of MN being linked with the government or people being pointed here by HCPs - better to stick with being independent and word of mouth recommendation I think.

Sure Start Centres do a lot of good and I think they work best when all services - HVs, family information service, family support workers etc, are all available in the same place. Our local one has been going for 10 years and is very efficiently run and has loads of great things running.

Scrap the 16 hour limit on Tax Credits, unless there is a particularly compelling reason why this is in place - perhaps keep JSA/IS on a sliding scale for people who work under 16 hours? I wonder if it is to do with zero-hours contracts.

Similarly, why do the 15 hours of free childcare at age 3 have such restrictions on when they can be used? It makes more sense to let parents use the hours when they want to.

sorry, CTF.

that can go.

tax credits, well, the writing's on the wall for higher-earners getting those.

A huge amount of money could be saved in benefits and tax credits by forcing all those absent fathers to pay for their children.

How many women would be able to afford childcare and go back to work if the fathers of their children were forced to pay consistently, reliably and a suitable amount?

How many mumsnetters recieve a pittiful amount of money from their ex's (if anything at all?) It's beyond ridiclous to expect the resident parent ot feed clothe and house their child on, what often amounts to less than £5 per week?

Why are non-paying parents allowed to dodge, dive and threaten the mother's of their children into accepting less than the bare minimum?

Why is the amount set so low in the first place?

Why are non-paying dads (it's usually dads) not prosecuted or pursued via the Tax Office?

Why are parents allowed to skip the country and their obligations?

Why can't non-payers be arrested?

In order to reduce the services the Government needs to cut, perhaps they can fund some of them by implementing a Bad Taste Tax 'Christmas Light Tax'? That way, people who choose to have giant inflateable snowmen outside their houses will find their neighbours more willing to put up with it in the knowledge that they are funding more midwives etc!

(I'm full of brilliant ideas!)

Don't underestimate the value of the surestart childrens centre's, yes there are improvements that could be made but they are certainly not just for the poorer areas.

Maybe we should turn them inot mumsnet centres?

This is a bit parochial but here goes.

Please, please, please do not withdraw the BFPO facilities from NATO HQs, as the families rely on these for contact with home and for being able to send legal documents, cheques, presents and business correspondence back to the UK,safely and securely, by using the Signed For services provided by Royal Mail.

Life will be a lot harder abroad if these facilities are withdrawn.

Work out how to measure the results of legislation, review them and be prepared to drop policies that are not working.

Stop wanking on about whose fault the debt it is - it looks childish.

Simplify the tax and benefits systems and define it's goals explicitly.

I think the isssue of "Safeguarding Our Blood Supplies" should warrant special attention, I would like to ask:
When does the government plan to introduce the screening of all blood donors for the Human Form Of Mad Cows Disease (vCJD).

At present the approach to safeguarding our blood is a "do nothing approach", many people are worried that they may be given infectious blood in hospital, I would like to ask what advice the government can give to us, as at present the risk of potentially being infected is NOT zero?

If this government is open, honest and transparent I would like to ask will they ever introduce safeguards to stop the spread of vCJD via blood supplies, breast milk, tissues and organs?

Does the government have any plans to introduce standard testing at post-mortems for vCJD?

I would also like to ask the government if our country can simply afford to support the many thousands of Polish children whom receive UK child benefit payments but remain living in Poland, this is known as an Exportable Benefit, to monitor this we must be spending many millions of tax-payers money, the parents only need to be registered for work in the UK to qualify. Should this loophole be scrutinised to save money?

I would also like to ask why free Home domestic help is given to people who are not special needs, I understand that if you ask a social worker for this help it can be given without many questions being asked. Should there not be strict criteria inplace to qualify?