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Gordon Brown’s Private War On Benefit

ANYONE expecting Gordon Brown to steer New Labour a little more to the left - once the arch-Thatcherite Tony Blair leaves No. 10 - will be sorely disappointed.

According to the Work and Pensions Secretary, John Hutton, the incumbent PM will go ahead with plans to put private companies and voluntary groups in charge of getting people off sickness benefits and back to work.

In a leaked copy of a speech to be given in Birmingham, Hutton will say: “I know there are some who hope the coming political transition will mean the Government goes cool on the prospect of further radical welfare reform to benefit the hardest to help. They will be disappointed.”

The Government is also pondering whether or not to allow private firms and the voluntary sector to run the ‘Pathways To Work’ scheme which offers incapacity benefit claimants help and advice on getting a job.

Not surprisingly, New Labour’s few remaining left-wing MPs aren’t happy. Nottingham South’s Alan Simpson says: “Simply shoveling public services into private pockets will not deliver any improvements to the public. Sooner or later, ministers will have to face the reality that they cannot run the welfare system like a car boot sale.”

What, are they planning to put David Dickinson in charge of it? At least he’s cheap as chips…

Private Consultants Cost Tax Payers £7.2billion

Anorak

Posted: 20th, June 2007 | In: Money Comments (5) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

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Rachel says:
June 27th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

I suffer with spastic paraplegia and fibromyalgia. How does Gordon Brown expect me to work and to pay for my medication, housing, catheters, towels etc. I would have to earn at least £30,000 a year at least just to break even.

At the next general election, he needs the boot. I am sorry, but I feel that he is going to make life even harder for those of us who are permanently disabled and with disabilities that can cause additional health problems.

Gordon Brown must think us disabled people are going to let him walk all over us and put us into deeper poverty if we can’t pay for our health. If I don’t have my medicines etc, then I can’t work, and even with them, my health is unstable.

Wake up, Gordon Brown-although I would like to be able to go to work, for me it is not economically feasible, unless you can guarantee our medicines, our health aids, our right to medical treatment, housing, food, etc. I have heard horror stories how some disabled people have been made homeless.

I am sorry to be so forthright, but being disabled is hard enough,but when somebody like Gordon Brown comes along-he doesn’t look at the full issues. He has a son with cystic fibrosis; he has to make provisions for him as he matures. It wouldn’t be fair, if his disabled son gets preferential treatment and others of us who are disabled are forced back to work without considering the financial and health problems that we would encounter.

David Jones says:
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:47 pm

I was on Incapacity Benefit due to a mental health complaint. Although off work I attended employment projects in the hope it would help me get better. As I gradually got better I did vol¨ntary work and through luck more than anything else I got a job as a support worker for people like myself at a project I once used to attend myself.

Unfortunately due to bad management this year I have found my wages and hours slashed to the point I am working for £10 more than I was getting on IB. Not a very good advert for anyone in a similar position that I was in. Before anyone says well leave and get another job, do they know anyone who will give employment to a 49 year old with a history of 24 years of mental ill health - I very much doubt it.

Once again this government like those before and no doubt after always pick on societys weakest targets. Hows about cutting child benefit and cutting free prescriptions for pregnant women?? I doubt it. Or really jumping on benefit cheats instead of playing lip service? Im afraid this life long labour voter will not be voting for the “iron laddie”, he will sit at home and count his twenty pences hoping he’s got enough to treat himself.

John Eayrs says:
June 21st, 2007 at 10:57 pm

It is not simply a matter of providing courses and information to those who are on incapacity benefit.

Some people on incapacity benefit are highly skilled but for one reason or another do not hace the ability to handle high stress.

A particular group I can think of are those who live with pain as a result of injury or sickness.

Very little is understood in regard to long term pain causing much reduced ability to handle stress. The action on pain group is having to try and educate many people in the medical proffession regarding this.

The suspect and dubious medical examinations by doctors examining people on incapacity benefit makes people extremly suspicious of any thing the government has to say regarding there back to work policies.

I am on incapacity benefit. The last medical by an incapacity doctor left me in much pain. What I said got ignored and it was clear that the doctor had no knowledge of what I had to live with everyday. The doctor had no interest in giving an examination appropriate to the condition I was suffering from.

A complaint to the GMC concerning got the reply this is opinion even though I gave factual evidence as to what the doctor did or did not do.

I have a BSc (hons) have been able to keep up a good skill base but I am unable to work at speed due to continually managing pain.

The government talks but fails to give employers help to enable people with skills like mine to be gainfully employed. Things are put out to tender the lowest tender wins. To keep down costs efficiency is needed. So the faster worker is always employed unless the company has another means of saving money ie grant from the government.

When the government starts to enable companies to employ skilled people with long term illness by the giving of grants then what the government says is just spin.