Government drawing up plans to help relocate the unemployed

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

Does anyone else find this a bit scary? Or is it a good idea?

Prolesworth I don't think you are an idiot!

The basic idea is that instead of central government getting all the new money that comes in from new houses, local councils keep it instead.

At the same time no targets are set from on high saying area X must have 4000 new homes.

The effect is hopefully to encourage much more incremental housebuilding - say one more house in every fifth street.

The public are a lot more happy about this sort of housing development than massive new estates suddenly appearing from nowhere. Also the effects on public services and infrastructure are easier to manage.

Obviously sometimes there is a need for large-scale housing projects, despite the unpopularity. Councils keeping more of the revenue from the new houses and the businesses around them will mean better provision of services.

I do think actually it is important to attract companies to all areas of the country.

Having so much of the private sector based in the south-east creates unnecessary and undesirable distortion effects.

But the problem that Iain Duncan-Smith has identified is a real one. If you have just got a council house or are near the top of the waiting list, then moving is next to impossible because you will go to the bottom of the list in the new area.

Ed Balls is talking about "on yer bike" politics. I understand why he is saying it, but it does seem to be an Ed Balls special - partisanship entirely for its own sake. I think even the most blinkered Labour supporter would agree that in principle, if people take the initiative to move for work, then they should have access to social housing if necessary.

But isn't that Labour all over.... "No you can't move up in the world because then you won't need us!!! Stay down, suffer in silence and let us look after you."

In their 13 years they actively reduced social mobility and they're still at it...

But chil - if these people agree to accept help to move out of an area with high unemployment who in their right mind would want to move froma private rental, or their own home into that house instead

And besides, they wouldn't stand a chance of getting a council house if they were already adequately housed, they'd go to people already on the housing list at the top who are desperate for a home to live in.

It's rubbish.

Firstly, it means if you're waiting for a council house in London, and have a job, you will, presumably, be bumped lower than someone, with council housing, somewhere else in the country, who is jobless.

Mmm. Popular.

And yes, I know that realistically, council housing in London is pretty much off the radar for all but the very desperate but, you know, there are still some that fall into that category. Eg. You could be living in an old-style housing-association place, with short lease, and have had children, and your relationship split up, and so on.

Secondly, it's a change of dealing with an effect of our nation's approach to industry. Instead of trying to widen the geography (and implicitly, type) of employment, with subsidies in an ideal world, or public sector jobs being relocated, they're going to privatise the problem.

It's basically what they're left with since they're committed, ideologically, to making the public sector smaller, and thus unable to use that as a stimulus to job creation, or to spreading work beyond the south east.

thirdly, it's window-dressing and distraction, largely from the ideology lying behind the second point. The numbers will be weeny, teeny. though I guess it has the potential of having a "stick" element attached to it at some future date, which will have the potential of being a sneaky benefit cut.

I was about to suggest employers could build housing where people are going to work, and then realised I had just reinvented the workhouse

Actually I'm not sure this is workable, lots of these people will be men who have families, will everyone up sticks and move to (for example) Reading because they have more jobs than say Scunthorpe? And are the children going to be guaranteed school places?

I was born in a miing arwa (South Yorkshire) and many of the people who worked in the maine which had just opened were form Scoland. They ine where thay had worked had been shut down and they were offered jobs in Yorkshire along with a house to live in. This made the move easy for them and if they had not moved there would have been an unemployment blackspot in Scotland.

If Govt relly wants to move masses of people form place so high unemployment then they wll have to be offered a house to live in.

whomoved housing where people work is a good idea - as per Cadbury's and the more philanthropic industrialists in the 19th Century. Workhouse was very different!

I don't think you'd get many employers to consider it as it's not an expense they currently bear.

Part of the problem with companies relocating to areas of high unemployment is that the nature of the British workforce has changed considerably over the past 30 (or more) years. Many communities have been affected by the change from us being a manufacturing/industrial "power" to the majority of jobs now being in the service sector.

I'm not really making a point here. I actually think it's a good idea to make it easier for people to move to where there is work for them. I thought Local Authority tenants had always had the opportunity to "swap" or move to a different area anyway though?

that report was insane, though! (I remember it at the time). It was suggesting that people moved to London.

I don't see anything bad about help with relocation costs, though, if people are moving to where there is work (but not to London and the SE). Moving house costs a lot, and if it's a barrier to moving for work, then that's an issue.

The main thing is that the jobs that people are going to are genuine, not created by artificial subsidies. Better to spend money on helping people relocate for real jobs than to spend money on job schemes that aren't backed by actual demand.

(Now the housing benefit cut of 10% after a year... that IS forcing people to move, and that I don't agree with).

where are the people going to go? so many private landlords are 'no DSS'. and, since the people are assumedly relocating to find work, it means they are unemployed and will need HB.

dumb idea.

trouble is, belle, you have to find someone willing and able to swap with you. and if your HA/council property is a flat, good luck with that!

Why would someone want to exchange OUT of an area with lots of jobs INTO the one with no work though?

That, too, Fanjo.

Also, when you exchange, you still need to cover ALL moving expenses.

Since council properties do not come with white goods, you're talking about a lot of money.

Also, if someone doesn't drive, that means they have to hire someone to move them.

Can just see whole areas turning into horrible areas where noone wants to live, parts of Edinburgh used to be like that, now they are SLIGHTLY better as an effort has been made to regenerate them and move people IN rather than to move people out to other areas.

i dont see hwy movign to get a job is such a horrendous proposal

It's not, Forlorn.

When a) there's actually a place for you to go and live. Again, we're talking about people on benefits who will not have a job when they arrive. So they'll need a landlord who takes HB. A guaranteed one, too b) money. Not just for the moving costs, but also because it will take at least a month before your new council pays out your HB, so at least the first month's rent will need paid as well as the moving costs.

Then, there's no guarantee the person will actually be able to get a job.

but the point is that if housing etc was arranged/guranteed its not a bad idea

its no more hassle than a non benefit person moving as their job changes...

But the non-benefit person has a job to go to.

They also have choice in where they live.

The HB person has to go where a landlord will take the HB.

Probably yet another ghetto.

i think the point is that they will guarantee housing and that an area where there is employment will be used.

god i bet a lot of people in central londong would KILL to have council housing here.
its lovely a lot of it ( not all admittedly)
and lots of jobs.

come on over!

They're putting them at the top of the housing lists in areas of high work, Forlorn.

Which, what does that mean for all those at the top of that list already?

Where do they go?

Oh, and have you seen the lists in areas of high work?