Labour are following Conservative thinking or rather diluting the ideas to draw off support and render them ineffective .There was appetite for this sort of thing until the Conservative Party took up the called Wisconsin revolution and following the IDS report . It says something about the navel gazing of the left that they think a debate only starts when they finally get out of bed. Why would labour want to end dependency and its army of public sector scavengers ? Who would vote for Labour if they did ?

Whoever wins, unemployed people are going to lose, the rhetoric has gone far enough (it would seem) that it is simply unacceptable to be on benefits unless you’re truly ill. Let’s re-link to this millennium dome piece as it’s spot on.

Are you aware that the same Tory document (Work to Welfare) contains a sub-clause proposing that equal pay audits be entirely scrapped, except for those firms that ‘lose pay discrimination cases’?

The Tories do NOT have an adequate grasp of the problem of the long-term unemployed and incapacitated. In fact, the language of the document vastly overestimates the number of welfare ‘scroungers’ and the number of people on Incapacity Benefit who don’t need to be (currently estimated at around 1-2%).

Don’t get me wrong – neither the Tory nor the Purnell plan offer adequate solutions to the problem of a stagnant welfare state that forces the long-term incapacitated out of work altogether, but please, don’t for a minute think that the Tories have the right idea about what’s wrong with the benefits system.

I’m with Laurie on this.

The Tories seem only to grasp the problem as simply being that everyone claiming beneifits shouldn’t be and should thus get a job and stop costing the country money.

In fact I’d suggest that without recognising the problem fully one recent development from Labour might represent real progress.

The new mortgage relief scheme is a temporary support. It has a finite end after which it can no longer be claimed. That means it is a return to the days when unemployment was inherrantly viewed as a short term situation affecting working people. And by working people, I mean people who had worked and would work again. Which is most people when they lose their job.

If politicians could return to that mentality it would benefit those who are not working people. People who are truly incapacitated by one cause or another. And it would benefit them because rather than dealing with them primarilly through the benefits system as we rightly do for the unemployed – we might start to deal with them primarilly through social services and other care services that actually look to help them with their problems and maybe even help overcome them.

Alas though, in the 90s so much harm was done to that agenda by Major declaring millions of unemployed ‘incapacitated’ to fiddle the figures that public perceptions will take a lot of changing now.

‘Alas though, in the 90s so much harm was done to that agenda by Major declaring millions of unemployed ‘incapacitated’ to fiddle the figures that public perceptions will take a lot of changing now.’

This is true – however, more of a localised than a national problem. Those that Major declared ‘incapacitated’ were the millions of (mostly) men left unemployed by the dissolution of heavy industries and mining – affecting particularly the North West, Wales and other largely industrial areas. That has led, in many of these areas, to a tradition of going ‘on the sick’ as there simply aren’t jobs for the children of the original incapacitated workers to go to. The issue is complicated because, in these areas, mental illness, depression and drug abuse are endemic, partly as a result of the demise of local industry without anything to take its place – and the generation of ex-miners in particular almost universally suffered permanent lung damage as a result of their work, and so many of them actually are unfit eg. to work in an office without re-training and physical and/or psychiatric tratment.

I really cannot condone Purnell’s approach in any way shape or form:
There are so many things plain wrong with Purnell’s approach (guided by the ignorant report by Freud, the banker: hundreds of billions to benefit bankers, whose ‘disability’ is solely their hubris, greed and ignorance).

a) Why the reduction (in some cases removal) of medical opinion when assessing medical problems?

b) Why is the assessment process now led by the ill-informed, if not the downright prejudiced?

c) Why the rigidity over 16 hours. Isn’t it better to encourage people to work the hours that fit their disability?

d) Why is it all stick and no carrot for the disabled, but scant action on employers : stigmatisng attitudes from too many employers make the job search even more difficult.

e) The farming out of the back-to-work/workfare to the private sector (and others) is short-sighted folly. having through my work met with some of these agencies, some are abysmal: ignorant of people’s conditions/diagnoses, offering patronisingly poor advice, using ‘advisers’ who are scarcely literate , numerate or capable, giving no real help, and taking all the credit (and a hefty Govt bounty) when the individual ignores their meddling and gets a post by their won efforts.

f) If under workfare, Joe Bloggs has to work for benefits, doesn’t that equate to c. £1.70 an hour, undercutting the minimum wage, but giving unscrupulous businesses a nice source of indentured labour.

g) Especially, but not exclusively, in mental health we are going to see (as we’ve already seen in pilot areas) swathes of individuals with severe and enduring problems, but very high levels of skill and ability, devastated by the fatuity of these ‘reforms’: assessed by the ignorant, squeezed towards posts that would exacerbate their condition (leading to a greater health social care burden for the state later, so plain daft), ‘advised’ by cheery-picking chancers, ignoring their existing talents and qualifications, ultimately used as the cheapest of cheap labour or denied any assistance.

My day job is in mental health and scores of my most vulnerable clients who are very far from work-ready are already being victimised (being meek, or very distressed, they’re easier to bully, unlike the robust lead-swingers) by the benefits agency, thanks to the direction set by Purnell. It’s not going to get better.

Whatever aspirations any government has we should start with the basics, preferably couched in everyday language.

Two financial factors immediately spring to mind:
[1] the current national debt is hurtling toward 1 trillion – a tab that our children must pick up long after Darling & Co have left politics to take up various company directorships, exactly as Patricia ‘the best year the NHS has ever had’ Hewitt did.

[2] ordinary families are now so mired in various financial pressures, such as off-setting their children’s university debt (now an average of £17k per child – so woe betide any family with two or three teenagers) – paying for the war in Iraq (now into it’s 5th year), exorbitant utility bills, unaffordable property (despite the recent drop) that it’s not hard to see why there is growing resentment about handing over yet more money to a lost causes – like certain baby murderer’s.

I mean do the sums: these three inadequates alone received various benefits, provision of social and health services, then there were court costs, the expense of more than one major inquiry, gaol time, presumably psychological therapy and finally resettlement costs, perhaps with a new identity.

Speaking from personal experience I find there is not much left in the pocket, no matter how hard I work – in fact I anticipate some bright spark suggesting that those who are disadvantaged will soon have rights to occupy any spare room in another families home.

If we are brutally honest we know, that despite a humane intention to provide assistance to those in genuine need, any system is rapidly corrupted by an army of scam merchants who quickly learn how to play the benefits game.
Think about it – would you sooner perform an unrewarding job, or receive a similar amount of cash (plus housing) for doing squat……………..mmmhhh ?

“If we are brutally honest we know, that despite a humane intention to provide assistance to those in genuine need, any system is rapidly corrupted by an army of scam merchants who quickly learn how to play the benefits game.”

I’m still yet to see any evidence that there is an “army” of anyone cheating benefits. Everything I have read or been presented shows that there is potentially a very small amount of benefit cheats. Some would argue that this is an acceptable negative to live with and to continue to be vigilant against to ensure that those that need benefits continue to get them without being bullied in to work against better medical judgement.

Hi Laurie,

please, don’t for a minute think that the Tories have the right idea about what’s wrong with the benefits system.

Luckily, I don’t think that and to be honest I don’t believe I wrote that. Labour’s proposal is marginally less awful than the Conservative one, I’ve no doubt about that. But what I’ve been arguing a number of times over at my own blog is that JSAs or housing benefit have never been the root cause of poverty & its attendant social problems, and so simply reforming welfare isn’t going to solve it either.

There’s a mistaken assumption that just getting people into work, either through force, coercion or tickling, will solve (a) the amount of money we spend on welfare and (b) all social problems in impoverished communities. It won’t. And that thinking needs challenging.

I’m operating under the assumption that the social dysfunction I mentioned near the top of my post is a barrier to working, that it has developed over generations and will take just as long to diminish. You don’t hear Labour talk about that, and for me, that’s a genuine problem.

By contrast, The Tories are talking publicly about these social aspects. Their conclusions are wrong and some of their policies are frightening, but they are, at least, talking about it. Labour aren’t doing enough of that, and I want to see is them committing themselves to better prisoner rehabilitation, more thorough Early Intervention programmes, investment social housing, adult education and the like. I want Labour to take on Cameron’s wonky ‘Broken Britain’ meme and prove that, insofar as it does exist, only a Labour government can enact the reforms to fix it.

I suspect I’ll be waiting in vain for that to happen, but you really don’t need to mistake me for a Tory waverer.

‘My day job is in mental health and scores of my most vulnerable clients who are very far from work-ready are already being victimised (being meek, or very distressed, they’re easier to bully, unlike the robust lead-swingers) by the benefits agency, thanks to the direction set by Purnell. It’s not going to get better.’

Me too – I’m working for One In Four magazine at the moment and the ESA has got a lot of people very worried. Its failure to take into account individual circumstances (eg – those with bipolar disorder are unlikely to present ‘typically’ at any assesment interview!) and failure to make provision for the physically and mentally disabled to do work that is appropriate in terms of hours, supported partly but not entirely by benefits, is fiscally and socially a massive mistake on Purnell’s part.

People with mental health difficulties are often able to work – what they’re less able to do is a 48-hour-per-week, high-stress job for minimum wage. The onus doesn’t only need to be on the state to provide an alternative -crucially, it needs to be on employers to take up the responsibility of offering appropriate working policies.

^ Yeah, I wrote that far too quickly, which means I either need a smoke or a good editor.

Just throwing this out there but I reckon we should cut taxes for the least well off and withdraw benefits for the able-bodied the longer they stay unemployed. And cut corporation tax so that we can keep global investment coming in so that we can keep the job market afloat. Pay for it by cutting middle class benefits like Guardian advertised non-jobs, and subsidised University fees – the majority of people benefit financially from going to university so they may as well pay for it.

And going a bit Georgist for second, perhaps we shouldn’t have income tax at all and just a tax on land value. That would do rather a lot to incentivise work over ownership.

Neil – you secret Tory you!

By the way, we’ll be launching some sort of an initiative on this in a few days – once the White Paper comes out (tomorrow I think). Don Paskini has offered to start off with some suggestions on what we should campaign for. After that, we need to find ways in which Purnell can be forced to make changes to the final bill.

“withdraw benefits for the able-bodied the longer they stay unemployed.”

Would you rather have a workshy layabout taking benefits when perhaps he doesn’t deserve them, or a workshy layabout committing minor crimes to fund his wish not to work?

“I’m operating under the assumption that the social dysfunction I mentioned near the top of my post is a barrier to working, that it has developed over generations and will take just as long to diminish. You don’t hear Labour talk about that, and for me, that’s a genuine problem…I want to see is them committing themselves to better prisoner rehabilitation, more thorough Early Intervention programmes, investment social housing, adult education and the like”

Whatever the many wrongs of their current approach, the Labour government has, to take just two examples, set up the biggest early intervention programme in British history and is rebuilding or refurbishing every single council and housing association house – there’s always more that can be done, but your view that Labour has been just about promoting employment whereas the Tories have a more rounded view isn’t supported by the evidence. The JRF research you cite shows that crime has fallen and educational attainment has improved.

One thing which seems to me to be really obvious but which neither party is keen on is the idea of actually asking people who are living in poverty about what needs to be done, and involving them in improving and designing new services. If you do that, you’ll find that a lot of this stuff about ‘social dysfunction’ is a distraction from the fact that the way to reduce poverty and sort out a lot of these problems and barriers to work is through tackling discrimination, better services and making sure everyone, whether working or not, has an adequate income to lead a dignified life.

The system Nick describes at 12 (cut taxes, withdraw benefits, fewer public sector jobs and higher university fees) is roughly the approach taken by the USA.

The end result is that they end up paying gargantuan sums on locking up more than 1% of their entire population. This is, I would submit, not a very liberatarian outcome.

When the Conservative Party first began to talk about this sort of thing one of the criticisms made was that it would be very expensive ( When they spoke of savings ) . It was valid criticism . In the US there has been a lot of success with getting malingerers back to work but if you are going to withdraw benefits then you need to have a lot of support and that is not cheap .Don`t be fooled by the word charity it is only a way of organising the same resources .The net affect would not be as Cameron claimed a saving but a cost .This was part of the reason Conservatives were being warned about tax rises well before the consequences of Brown’s squander going in to a recession made tax rises inevitable anyway even if the projects conceived in clement economic weather are quietly scrapped . The truth is this whole discussion is behind the times and can no longer be funded by any Party. This is chit chat in a vacuum

Brown is directly to blame for a historic opportunity to change this country being squandered and for that reason alone he deserves the abiding loathing of anyone who cares about the continued disgrace of a rich country containing vast waste lands of benefits dependency and hopelessness

Don – that is more because of the drug war in interaction with a few other factors. Not a libertarian outcome but not libertarian means either. But you do point to something important that I did miss out – the single best thing we could do to decrease welfare dependence and deprivation and crime more generally would be to legalise and license the vast majority of currently prohibited drugs.

Incidentally, the US federal government has been supplying increased funding for university fees for many years, which in a market tends to bid up the cost of tuition.

Don, here we are: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/02/29/one-in-100-behind-bars-in-america-2008/

Don,

The JRF report also shows that most of their measurements record either stalling or decline in the last five years, so we can surely agree that the government’s strategy prior to these welfare reforms hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses. Of course, I’m aware of what the government’s done in regards to early intervention (I wrote about it on this very site), and social housing (I’ve written about it on my own blog), but I’m still going to contend that not enough has been done over Labour’s eleven years, and it remains baffling that these things aren’t part of Labour’s conversation about welfare. Furthermore, I think it would’ve been better to see the social benefits of Labour’s approach in these areas (as well as SureStart, which is only now getting the funding it needs) before we tried to implement these welfare reforms.

I’d completely agree that we should ensure that “everyone, whether working or not, has an adequate income to lead a dignfied like” but I really don’t think it’s as easy as simply tackling discrimination and better services. There have been generations of joblessness, poverty, poor education and low aspiration since deindustrialisation, and I think that will take some time to put right.

Neil – you secret Tory you!

You certainly know how to hurt someone Sunny

@ Laurie (10)
“People with mental health difficulties are often able to work – what they’re less able to do is a 48-hour-per-week, high-stress job for minimum wage. The onus doesn’t only need to be on the state to provide an alternative -crucially, it needs to be on employers to take up the responsibility of offering appropriate working policies.”
Quite agree, but there’s f*ck all being done to get employers to make (simple, cheap) accommodation. Despite all of its soundbites, this Govt doesn’t get MH at all: CBT’s no panacea, IAPT is proving to be a wasted opportunity, God I could go on.
There’s the asumption (via Layard) that putting MH users in work is of itself some kind of cure. It isn’t: it depends on the work and such is the still-too-prevalent stigma that all too often the only work is the exploited, crap, low-pay,low-security stuff, which leads to relapse. A single relapse requiring an in-patient stay (average cost £300 a night without follow-up or drug costs factored in, and a section can last months and months) would wipe-out the benefit ‘savings’ from getting half a dozen users back to work, so it ain’t even saving on the bill to the taxpayer, quite the opposite.

I shall enjoy reading the white paper when it comes out. I’m sure there will be things in it to get hot under the collar about…

(Has anyone else noticed that Newmania and the other trolls are starting to be constructive as they become less shrill and recognition grows that wide-ranging debate is possible across the spectrum? It doesn’t mean I agree with them of course, but maybe politics does have a future!)

(Has anyone else noticed that Newmania and the other trolls are starting to be constructive as they become less shrill and recognition grows that wide-ranging debate is possible across the spectrum? It doesn’t mean I agree with them of course, but maybe politics does have a future!)

I think it means that we can all play along nicely. With no need for Sunny to get out his weapon.*

*oooh-er.

Or “*h-r.”

One word in regards to Purnell’s attacks and that’s workfare. It is neither fair nor work. The DWP’s own research on workfare globally is it…..doesn’t work! Workfare will also drive down pay and conditons therefore the unions should be at the fore fighting these attacks, they will have severe knock-on effects. Why employ someone on good pay and conditions when you could get someone to work for their dole?

NL chuck crumbs when it suits them from the minefield of tax credits and other little sops but this is an ideological attack on claimants. It is the politics of the workhouse…next stop…workhouse. And where are these jobs Purnell want’s people to take? The jobs in his looking to are the ones that collapse during a recession. NL are in a contradictory political quandary: recession and increased unemployment means people claiming JSA simultaneously pushing the unemployed back into work that isn’t there. The TUC have called upon Purnell to increase the meagre JSA but to no avail.

The Tories will turbo-charge their attacks on the poor as opposed to the gradualist approach by NL but even they are upping the ante. But in many ways the unemployed will be caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to NL and the Tories, caught between the competitiveness of both parties of who can screw the poor the best. And this will have a determintal imapct on people esp. those with mental distress. If the desirable response (and I am sure Brown and Purnell won’t lose sleep) is to instil fear and stress therefore people drop out of the system into dire poverty then it is thumbs up as far as the still neo-liberal driven NL are concerned.

Finally, here’s a radical idea what about increasing benefit rates?

Finally, here’s a radical idea what about increasing benefit rates?

Ah, for want of a magic wand. Or, y’know, a better government….

Have posted at enormous length on CiF about this (well by my standards, ooh-er):

James Purnell and co are full of venom and belligerence towards benefits “scroungers” (who, in the grand scheme of things don’t actually cost the taxpayer anything like as much as the incompetence, dogma and ludicrous projects of the aforesaid MPs and ministers).
What they singularly are silent upon is just how they will prevent the majority of claimants, who ARE honest, incapacitated and deserving from being reduced to persecuted penury by their measures.
Just what and where is this work that the chronically ill and disabled should be doing? Who are the employers willing to make the appropriate accommodations for them (and note all the onus and coercion affects the claimants, few duties on employers…).What calibre of jobs will there be deemed okay for the disabled–only those low wage, low security, low status ones, which (pace Dame Carol Black) do NOT aid recovery or rehabilitation. Minimum wage, dead-end jobs fit nobody’s needs, save those of NuLab’s business pals, and in action more often retard an individual’s recovery than assist.
To concentrate overwhelmingly upon one aspect of the benefit system (the ‘scroungers’, who any search will show are not actually that many in number or indeed that costly) without considering the consequences upon the other elements is plain wrong-headed.

By demonising and obsessing about ‘scroungers’, the proposals by Purnell and co will perhaps make some marginal savings by catching out the odd fraudster (as I’ve said the perceptions propagated about the level of fraud are mistaken, as it is not that widespread) but in the process have a wholly unfair, disproportionate, and devastating impact upon the truly needy.
The approach favoured by Purnell and co is such a blunt instrument that it will do more harm than good. Should the unremitting pursuit of scroungers impact upon the genuine? Ideally, it wouldn’t, but that is NOT the tack this sorry bunch has adopted. Reluctant to put in the appropriate screening measures (just check out who is scheduled to be doing these new assessments: a prime mover and a pet favourite of NuLab is UnumProvident, the disgraced US firm facing numerous class actions suits to stop and correct their illegal disability claims practices and to secure help for the thousands of people who obtained their disability coverage through their employers and have had claims denied or terminated).Reluctant to spend any money enabling the sick to get to work. The aim underlying all this is to stop the sick costing money. It’s not to cure or heal, but simply to provide fodder for big business. If you wanted to examine barriers to the disabled and the sick from being in employment look at the attitudes and support of employers. Purnell and Black’s suggestions relieve them of responsibility because someone else has arbitrarily decided X can do job Y (and not via any adequate skills assessment), therefore X must do job Y or starve. Notice there isn’t any duty or onus on the employer to make accommodation for X’s health.
There is also the fact that although politicians may like to pretend that if a hod carrier is unable to carry bricks, his employer will suggest that he arranges the flowers in the office instead, there is a gulf between their perverse, disconnected and artificial impression of the world and how it is actually lived by real people doing proper jobs.
The line taken by this Govt will result in appalling ‘collateral damage’. In short, to target scroungers, it’s not a great idea to do so in a manner which in a fashion that punishes hundreds of thousands of innocents. Don’t operate from a presumption of guilt.

With getting people back to work,in many cases, it isn’t simple, and the odd word of encouragement won’t do: there are two factors, the employer and the potential employee, and both can be f*ckwitted and obstructive.
Employers can and do discriminate against the older, those with really entrenched/recurrent health problems, and especially against those who’ve had mental health problems, something NOT covered in anti-discrimination legislation. In my work I have q. a lot of clients wishing to be gainfully employed, and with multiple skills, but they come up against a wall of stigma, ignorance and prejudice from employers. They’ll be the ones left to pick up dogshit in the park for £1.40 an hour under Purnell’s scheme.
On the other hand there are the lead-swingers, adept at playing any system immaculately, who will be too costly for private companies to chase up (unless silly money is spent, quite possible, given the trend for flinging money at outsourced firms).
Some bargain-basement (the only type of service you get with outsourcing) gentle encouragement will scarcely help here.
Oh, and then there’s the whole realm of the private sector job brokerage firms’ ethos. I encounter quite a lot, who seek to ‘help’ my clients. Not one has benefitted:
They’ve either been job-ready, and got a job THEMSELVES (10%) with sod-all input from the firm (though they claim the credit), been refused a job due to stigma (20%), or in roughly 70% of cases are miles away from being employable, but are put through repetitive programmes by these private firms so that they can fulfil targets and quotas. Are they any better off? NO, not least because the private advisers are half-wits, with no knowledge of the clients’ conditions, the training is bloody awful, and the firm isn’t bothered about the client, only about their contract.
For clarity, I don’t work in welfare or benefits, but in mental health, an area in which damn near every LEGITIMATE user of MH services (because you wouldn’t take neuroleptics for fun or to get a few quid) is absolutely terrified by the tenor of all the new pronouncements on benefits. The MH services are stretched to breaking point, support is missing, and notably absent have been any plausible reassurances from Govt that the severe and enduring range of MH users won’t be hammered. It might never be the intention to squeeze the most unwell, but all we’ve heard is the get tough line, and furthermore, who’d trust Govt ‘assurances’ these days?
The supposed greater success rate for the private sector very much correlates with ‘cherry-picking’. There is no study anywhere in the world that provides a solid evidence base for the kind of shift Purnell is floating. There are a shedload of bad agencies out there who’ll flood in, providing a piss-poor service at great cost, and stigmatising the most vulnerable clients to boot.
Via Polly:

Richard Johnson of Serco, bidding for eight big contracts, complains they are expected to find jobs for twice as many hard cases in these bad times as the DWP achieved in good times. So he has bid at 14% less than the target set – and defies anyone who claims they can hit 50% into work for at least six months at the price of £500 per claimant. He warns that irresponsible bidders will take money for easy cases and forget the rest. One bidder tells of another whispering that the only way to make money is “to take the hardest to help and lock them in a dark room”

In my neck of the woods (with v. high unemployment rates) it’s the private sector agencies who are taking the piss, getting money for nothing, and letting down the clients, whereas the much-maligned DWP has (as an example) moved to fund condition management teams, so for mental health claimants, there is a squad including an occupational therapist, a CPN etc, all to help on the road to employment, while the private agencies gets more money for supplying clients with a sub-literate ‘adviser’, clueless and downright hostile, who doesn’t know or care about the client. To maximise profits unscrupulous private sector agencies cherry-pick the most job-ready while those who require more intensive assistance are parked on benefits. What else can be expected when profit is the main motivator?

The sweeping generalisations by the likes of Purnell will throw many babies out with the bathwater,solely to progress his career.

“I’m still yet to see any evidence that there is an “army” of anyone cheating benefits. Everything I have read or been presented shows that there is potentially a very small amount of benefit cheats. Some would argue that this is an acceptable negative to live with and to continue to be vigilant against to ensure that those that need benefits continue to get them without being bullied in to work against better medical judgement.”

That’s because the system doesn’t classify people who churn out sprog after sprog to get their hands on money which they then spend on fags, booze and lottery cards rather than their own children as cheats. Nor does it treat the “single” parents who actually live with a partner as cheats, both well known and widespread fiddles which were coincidentally exposed in 2 recent very high profile child abuse cases. The breakdown of family structures, housing policies and a “go easy on single parents policy” has made it virtually impossible for anyone to know what a claimants true situation is. Most cheats are caught (beleive it or not) from being grassed up by disgruntled neighbours, jealous exes or family members. Even then these people are labelled “vulnerable”, by the very loud, very left welfare lobby and are very rarely punished in any meaningfull way “Ok you can pay it back at 50p a week, taken from your benefits for the next 200 years”

The only “official” cheats are the small number of cash in hand workers who are actually caught in the act – a tiny number as the DWP doesn’t have the resources to properly investigate even that most obvious of frauds. Unfortunately a perfect storm of cynicism, expediency, political correctness and a plain lack of bottle has allowed abuse of the countrys largesse to perpetuate to the point where most benefit claimants are cheating at something.

Matt:

Please don’t pontificate on people that you only drive past. Using Matthews and Baby P as a stick to beat welfare claimants is a low trick, the lower orders don’t have a monopoly on child abuse, although you would like to claim as much.

As for benefit fraud; from reading my local papers those who invariably end up in the magistrates court are those who fail to declare a change in circumstances vis-a-vis housing benefit/council tax benefit.

Also Matt, I claim JSA and have been out of work for almost 18 months and I have little time for a drive-by ignoramus calling me a cheat.

Outstanding piece from Matthew Norman in the Independent today:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-it-takes-a-rich-man-to-pour-such-scorn-on-the-poor-1061132.html

c) Why the rigidity over 16 hours. Isn’t it better to encourage people to work the hours that fit their disability?

Yes. In fact, I suppose one could fix the whole system by:

1. Introducing a citizen’s income as a replacement for jobseekers’ allowance, income support, council tax benefit etc. in a fiscally neutral way. As a fringe benefit, this eliminates many classes of benefit fraud, as you’ll get the same amount of money whatever you say, and changes in your circumstances are irrelevant.
2. Taking the incapacity benefit budget and using it to “employ” sick and/or disabled people to attend occupational therapy. For those that get better, they’ll spend less time being paid to get treatment, and more time working at a part-time job. For those who can’t be helped, this employment might well mean that they are employed to have a cup of tea at a drop-in centre, or to be visited by a social worker or something.