Minister For Social Care Launches A National Debate On Social Policy

[Cronky]

Minister for Social Care Launches a National Debate on Social Policy

http://www.gov.im/li...erforsocia1.xml

 

 

The Minister commented:

“We now have a simple choice: in order to address the substantial gap between Government’s income and expenditure we can either raise taxes significantly – which I firmly believe will damage jobs and the economy – or we can accept reforms to our social policy to ensure we support the most vulnerable while balancing Government’s budget. I am very confident that – if we have clear principles and apply them fairly – then the public will accept the need for change. I look forward now to a thorough public discussion on the principles of social policy reform.”

 

and here is how the policy will be developed:

 

Following the consultation this summer, Tynwald will be provided with an opportunity to debate social policy reform. This will assist Government in formulating the right overall social policy framework for the Island that has the broad support of Tynwald and the public. This framework will be crucial to Government in drafting the 3-year Budget for Tynwald to approve in February 2013. Detailed public discussions and consultations on specific reforms will take place during 2013 and possibly beyond. In this way Government can ensure there is full public engagement throughout while enabling progress to be made in meeting the current financial challenge.

 

That, I would suggest, is exactly how such an important new policy should be hammered out. There is no shying away from the problem and MHK's are going to have to do their homework and get their heads round the issues.

 

The point comes across very clearly to me in this press release - no more trapping people on benefits because we simply can't afford it.

[Donald Trumps]

We need to 'accept' reforms to all government activity

 

Lets have plenty of consultation and full public engagement on the matter

[Theodolite]

The bloated and overpaid army of Government employees are being left to their huge salaries and pensions (and twice annual holidays skiing or sunning it somewhere or whatever) whilst Robertshaw attacks the other end of the social scale to look for the mega £millions of cuts.

 

Come the revolution citizen (as Wolfie Smith used to say)* . . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

*inserted in case someone thinks I am trying to start a revolution or something.

[YodaYessir]

Don't think Mr Robertshaw would view it like that

 

Suggest you read between the lines a bit

 

That said, if the most needy get picked on & the fat cat cs/ps folk are left untouched I'd suggest there will be social unrest on this island on a scale that hasn't been seen for two hundred years

[Theodolite]

I have to be honest, I hardly read it at all. It was enough to know it was coming from Chris Robertshaw.

 

He showed so much promise after getting in on the by-election as a backbencher (we need another word than 'backbencher', it simply doesn't sit right in Manx politics) but now he is one of Bell's belles, he seems to have dismissed all he once appeared to stand for (and got elected for).

[Blade Runner]

Give him a chance, this plus the changes to the social housing policy based on the responses to the consultations may, if introduced and I do believe they will be because we are broke, might well see him called a hero on here depending on your point of view.

 

I think we can safely assume that CR is not depending on the extra money for being a minister or for that matter, his MHK salary, to allow him to eat and house himself. In that respect, he is ideal to push through these necessary but vote losing measures.

 

I heard a clip about the benefit proposals on the radio this afternoon and it sounded quite a reasonable proposal, basically cutting back the payments to relatively well off people and helping the most needy. Same with social housing, means test and either raise the rents or stop relatively wealthy people using money/recourses that could be better targeted at the truly needy.

 

 

.

[manshimajin]

I am sure that it is not meant to read this way but to me the opening seems to say we have one chance to fix the imbalance between income and expenditure, other than raising taxes. That is to reform the social policy.

 

My big fear is that our MHKs will read it that way..."we don't need to reform the political system (phew!), we don't need to pay the proper amount for our pensions (phew!), we don't need to upset public servants by going back to year 2000 staffing levels (phew!), we don't need to benchmark public spending projects (phew!), we don't need to deal with things like tax capping or corporate tax (phew!). It can all be fixed by tackling social policy (phew!)"....No it can't.

[woolley]

Support the genuinely needy, yes, but I hope we aren't also going to continue to bankroll the feckless and lazy who think it's their right to live at the expense of everyone else whilst being perfectly capable of working to maintain themselves. I would bring in soup kitchens for them.

[Cronky]

According to the 2011 'Pink' Book the estimated cost of Social Care for 2011/12 is £136,217,000 - that's out of a total estimated expenditure of £533,000,000.

 

Apparently this budget is still rising. Granted that Government is still wasting money in other areas and more needs to be done about that. However . . . the disproportionately large Social Care budget is unsustainable unless there are big tax rises which would kill the local economy and employment with it.

 

Personally, I think that it is utterly wrong to have a system that traps people on benefits. But it certainly isn't going to be easy unwinding the culture. The benefits trap is a problem across the whole of the UK. Going back thirty years I can recall young couples boasting about how they had started a family in order to get a council flat - as opposed to saving for the day when they could have a family.

 

The particular difficulty with unwinding the benefits culture in the isle of Man is that the Island will be leading the UK in this matter. So the economic culture for families in Douglas will be quite different to those in, say, Liverpool.

 

That is going to have consequences which will have to be understood - most importantly by those who are going to find themselves in a different economic situation to extended family members across.

[fred w]

Why was the minister on the radio at 5 o'clock several hours before this info was posted on the gov website

 

Does this not say alot for the way gov info is diseminated and put a lie to manx radios claim not to be the mouth piece of the government

 

It shows the ministers 1 minute sound bite talking about changes and a model produced but no backup to this for several hours

 

typical of our ' joined up government'

[manshimajin]

Cronky et al I don't think anyone who contributes to tax would disagree with what you say in general terms. But two of the reasons social care costs are going up in line with inflation are because:

• unemloyment has doubled in the last 5 years,
  
• the population is ageing which brings growing costs of care.
  

There are some very obvious areas that have been highlighted for at least the last 12 months (maybe longer) and to date nothing has been done except talk about 'consultation'.

 

An obvious one is that most people seem to feel/know that there are rorts going on in relation to some recipients of social housing.

 

On the housing front one might also mention that first home buyer subsidies rarely help the purchaser - they help developers keep prices up.

 

I have friends who run a business. They want staff. They have been tolf that unemployed people are being sent for interviews. They don't turn up. When they call back to report this they have been told 'that's not my problem'. Perhaps this needs tougher and fairer public servants (the current ones are not being fair to my friends or to taxpayers). A consequence is that they are now thinking of relocating their business off Island.

 

But, despite the need to urgently extract government digits that seem to have got jammed in place, all of this is only part of a bigger picture which requires much more effective action on PS numbers which have been allowed to grow by 1/3 over the last 10 years. It needs a genuine questioning of why we have the unaffordable political structure we have. It needs much better control over government spending on public works. It needs some bright ideas on revenue creation as well as expense cutting.

 

We are also in a bind over tax. We have attracted businesses and people here in the past with higher tax structures. But Bell in particular gave that away. Now we can't claw it back - or regain the losses of VAT that his policies no doubt contributed to.

[interestedman]

The bloated and overpaid army of Government employees are being left to their huge salaries and pensions (and twice annual holidays skiing or sunning it somewhere or whatever) whilst Robertshaw attacks the other end of the social scale to look for the mega £millions of cuts.

 

Come the revolution citizen (as Wolfie Smith used to say)* . . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

*inserted in case someone thinks I am trying to start a revolution or something.

 

He has to start somewhere....in fact We have to start somewhere. Why should the taxpayer continue to fund people who quite obviously take the easy option. That is not to say that there are low earners who do work hard to earn a crust and they are worthy of a bit of support from society, but we have an ingrained culture of reliance on the state and we have to sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

Having said that, my worry is that Robertshaw is trying to save the world in one swoop.......in which case, I think he will come a cropper as they say. It would be much easier, quicker and beneficial to do it piece by piece.

[EORH]

We are now reading about an increase in the numbers of unemployed for June,there are quite a lot of young people who have never had a job,now there could be that some really want a job and can't get one,and others who couldn't care less as long as they are getting money for nothing,the government is building itself a timebomb with this.

Surely Robertshaw should be going back to the old system of sending people for a job with the green card,if they don't turn up their dole should be suspended for 6 weeks,they then have to apply for Social Security payments which were a lower rate,[ That's how it used to be ], it worked,people made sure they turned up for the job,at least the employer then couldn't complain nobody turned up.

But the government must bring in some emergency measures to get these young people jobs,so at least they get work experience,IE Winter work schemes idea,but at any time of the year,talking about having consultations and debates on how to handle the problems takes time,and we haven't got time,because the next batch of school leavers are ready to come onto the market this September,I see bus loads of them going past on their way to school,but also a un-certain future every day.

This government has had 9 months to get cracking,and what have they done,cut pre-school places,and libraries,and closing a old peoples care home,shuffle some people around from department to department,freeze some wages/salaries,and give others rises,waste money on certain roads,expensive roundabouts,faulty bollards,quangos which cost over the top amounts of money,millions on new buses every year,thousands on a train,£23 million on a gas pipeline for 6,500 could be customers,and the looming big spend on Pinewood,I'm sure somebody will add to this list.

[Andy Onchan]

......basically cutting back the payments to relatively well off people and helping the most needy. Same with social housing, means test and either raise the rents or stop relatively wealthy people using money/recourses that could be better targeted at the truly needy.

 

 

.

 

Can't argue with the principle but what does that equate to in pounds, shillings & pence? It's a bit Robin Hood'ish, rob from the rich give to the poor... whichever way you view that it still costs the same. It says more about social equity than it does about cost reduction and book balancing which is what the exercise should be about.

[Barrie Stevens]

The Island's unemployment in certain quarters is (a) cultural and (b) structural.....

 

As many of you will have gathered I did many, many unpleasant, tiring, filthy and menial tasks on the Island often holding down several jobs at a time in order to make up to as much as 86 hours a week in my latter years of working....

 

Now being pensioned off and ensconced in my retirement apartment I can look back and laugh but it was not a joy ride at the time...

 

My direct experience has always been that the work is there in plenty but it is lowly and menial and that the Island people (I do not say Manx) do not want to do it!

 

Witness the things said on MF to me about "cleaning"....This is the Island's attitude problem when it comes to work....

 

The Isle of Man is riddled with "Job Snobbery" consequently many people will not take the work on offer...Good cleaning by the way requires an eye for detail, energy, application and stamina!..It also enables you to work independently as your "own Boss"...

 

Another factor is that quite a lot of the Island youth are simply not up to the task of back-office work such as dealing with customers on the 'phone as they are inarticulate and semi-coherent and lacking in basic skills...

 

I shall never forget having to explain to two local 18 year olds how to write and post a letter in the Regent Street Post Office!

 

So much for the cultural. Now for the structural...

 

The boom years created so much work that "foreign workers" had to be recruited in order to do the jobs that the Islanders did not want....same in UK also!

 

Consequently, or at least when I left in 2008, there were a lot of migrant workers holding down many jobs like me in a sort of "portfolio"....

 

Many such workers studied the "Citizenship" book issued to them and eventually qualified for "Indefinite Leave to Remain"...Thus large numbers of migrant workers no longer needing work permits may well be holding the jobs that the Islanders (some of them!) might now want!

 

I worked with several people from the Philippines...They had many jobs ranging from security guard, driver, courier, cleaner, care home assistant....Most of them did three or four of these jobs in any week at various times...

 

One worked at cleaning for £10 an hour in the Villa, cleaned for a contractor elsewhere and worked in a local school cleaning...His wife worked in a care home...

 

He told me that he and his wife saved £76,000 cash in three years and had bought two rice farms back home, paid for their house and that before coming to the Island he had been a regular soldier on £40 a month active service pay getting shot at on the Island of Mindanao!

 

Your average Island resident is simply unable to compete with the migrant workers' voracious appetite for work nor with their low running costs of communal living with many in one house and all tasks shared including a shared "white van"!!

 

Every morning at 4 am the 'phone in the foyer of the Villa Marina would ring and the caller in the Philippines told of jobs available on the Island....within 24 hours the Island community had paid their fare and flown them over to join the gang...

 

If this continues, or is still true, then the Island will always have a substantial unemployment problem or at least a substantial Benefits & Welfare bill masking the true unemployment figures...