Social Policy, the Ballot Box, Democracy
I would like to propose a social policy for folks to consider: that people living on benefits should be able to apply for "Working tax credit" at 16 hours if they do volunteering work. "Something for Something".
The reasoning: I used to be a fee earner paralegal in London charging out at £120 per hour. I worked for several years as a volunteer for Citizen Advice Bureau in Edinburgh and provided the same service to client as I did to blue chip companies as a paralegal. I worked 1 day a week at CAB and saw 4 clients per day. If this was costed as my previous paid employment it would be approximately £500 per day, which is £2,000 per month, or £12,000 for 6 months or £24,000 per year. Friends of CAB reckon a client meeting is approx £16 per hour, which is approx £65 per day, or £260 per month, or £1,500 per 6 months or £3,000 per year. Working tax credit at 16 hours is around £2,000. (I had 4 volunteering jobs working in excess of 16 hours for my benefits only). There is intrinsic social value in volunteering which can have a value added valuation to society.
The Welfare reforms required the core jobless to engage in employability which included volunteering. All well and good but New Labour were expecting something for nothing and people still have to buy clothes, have money to socialise albeit you can claim back travel costs and reasonable expenses. Furthermore, the volunteer organisations did not receive funding to engage with the welfare reforms to take on people as volunteers and many voluntary agencies also experienced a funding crisis due to the recession. Bad timing aside for the reforms, there is still a need to think this one through further via the Office of the Third Sector.
The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) already gather information about people who volunteer, so it would not be difficult to provide "something for something" to folks who step forward and engage in the welfare reforms and do volunteering by enabling them to claim working tax credit at 16 hours or 30 hours as per paid employees. This could be seen as an anti-poverty measure and social inclusion, ie a half way house between living on benefits and moving back into work. The housing benefit anomaly would need to be sorted out though and it could be extended to pensioners to assist to lift them out of poverty too.
The other area of social policy that needs some improvement is employment rights when volunteering as you should not have to rely on mutual trust and confidence alone. The only statutory reference to volunteering is contained in the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, s3 you must not physically or mentally impair an employee or non-employee (deemed to be a volunteer). And this is existant from day 1 minute 1 of employment. New Labour did not think through this aspect of employment in the welfare reforms and it is possible to become volunteer trapped - CV is enhanced by increased skills but still no prospect of paid employment ensues. The core jobless categories include lone parents, disabled, mentally disabled, homeless, ex-prisoners, aged 50+, NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training - Youth), etc.
Volunteering is rewarding in itself but the welfare reforms has created two strands of volunteer (a) the altruistic volunteer; (b) the welfare reformer. The former is usually dependendable and reliable and in with the bricks; the latter is looking for short-term gain to move speedily on to paid employment. Without organisations gaining increased funding to cover welfare reformers they are training people who move on quickly and there may be minimal benefit to the organisation per se.
At the Ballot Box - some women in the Highlands of Scotland deliberately spoiled their ballot at the last General Election by putting "rotten egg, rotten egg, rotten egg" all the way down the ballot - they were not wrong! It is still democracy to spoil the ballot as it has to be counted. The conundrum at this General Election is twofold (a) democracy per se and (b) the need for a Hung Parliament - albeit I believe as soon as the expenses scandal was known, a Hung Parliament should have been an automatic process to suspend all MPs involved and to either (i) hold constituency elections or (ii) request the second place at the General Election to stand forward - I would have preferred the latter in hindsight.
Democracy - we do not exist in a democracy since 1999, nor judicial oligarchy, nor effective monarchy. Our laws have been enacted from the dispatch box, not the Woolsack and we have now got a politician, Jack Straw MP, with Executive powers in the judiciary when it should be a Judge with Executive powers in the Cabinet. (The same situation exists in Scotland where a solicitor has high office instead of a judge). The absence of a Judge in cabinet is a serious democratic failure (a lady chancellor might be a good idea!). There is also the real problem that the English are not devolved which causes an imbalance in political line management. It is therefore no surprise that the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, was in the courts yesterday before Lady Smith on an issue of democracy. Lady Smith found against Mr Salmond on the premis that he had not timeously dealt with the issue and that it was too late to now deal with it, it being merely a stunt and not related to the BBC's "due impartiality" test. Commonsense alone would have found for the SNP I think, three political parties have an undue advantage over the SNP who actually hold power in Scotland even although they are a small party by comparison. The issue was not a timing issue but democratic and a substantive outcome should have occurred. Moreover, even I balk at the proposal that the SNP spent £50,000 on a stunt!
Article in The Scotsman on 29 April 2010 by Tom Peterkin and John Robertson entitled "'Too Late' Alex Salmond loses battle with the BBC over debate" (Click Here)
To clarify: in law the procedure and the substantive outcome are two different issues. Quite often there is a lot of what I call procedural nonsense so as not to get to the substantive outcome. A judgment, or at least a good one, should feature both issues. Concerning the SNP v BBC dispute, if you have gone down the wrong route, it does not follow that you should continue on the wrong route where an opportunity presents to go onto the right route, ie having shown two out of the three programmes, the SNP could still have prepared to feature in the third programme over cancellation or non-distribution of the debate programme to the Scottish electorate. Not having seen the papers or Lady Smith's judgment I am wondering if the contractual matrix was three separate contracts for the programmes or one contract for three programmes, albeit it it is probably a de minimus point in any event and I don't know what body of law the case is founded in. Unfair Contract terms perhaps ...
Whilst I can see where Lady Smith is coming from and she has focused on "procedure" and time in bringing the action which is quite correct for a judgment in procedure, I am more inclined to the substantive issue and that is there is a failure of democracy yet again which is concurrent with New Labour's terms of office. I am more concerned that the parties in opposition, especially so the Liberals who have a PR ticket of "fairness", that they did not also oppose the BBC's headlining only 3 political parties and also evaded the issue of the Greens, the Independents, the looney tunes, etc. I am also concerned that the SNP had a further issue of funding the litigation which they had a 48 hour whip round to raise the £50,000 necessary for the case to be heard before Lady Smith. This raises two issues - that timeousness may have been prevented due to a funding issue and justice is therefore denied. Even late in the day having the funds to litigate should still enable justice. Furthermore, how did it manage to cost £50,000 in the first place ... or is this the cost of losing and paying the BBC's costs. Something needs to be addressed here, as New Labour has again failed at the ballot box to provide a fair process to a democratic ballot - it may be the case that international arbiters will be monitoring the ballot. (The last ballot in Scotland via Douglas Alexander MP saw widespread chaos with the ballot forms causing too many spoiled ballot papers). This time it is the failure to include the smaller parties in the widespread debate on manifesto promises to the electorate: why should this be allowed in our society in the 21st Century! Democracy has to be democratic not a whitewash or a sham. It may be the case that the electorate will deliver a Hung Parliament and spoiling the ballot paper is still democratic these days ...
The reasoning: I used to be a fee earner paralegal in London charging out at £120 per hour. I worked for several years as a volunteer for Citizen Advice Bureau in Edinburgh and provided the same service to client as I did to blue chip companies as a paralegal. I worked 1 day a week at CAB and saw 4 clients per day. If this was costed as my previous paid employment it would be approximately £500 per day, which is £2,000 per month, or £12,000 for 6 months or £24,000 per year. Friends of CAB reckon a client meeting is approx £16 per hour, which is approx £65 per day, or £260 per month, or £1,500 per 6 months or £3,000 per year. Working tax credit at 16 hours is around £2,000. (I had 4 volunteering jobs working in excess of 16 hours for my benefits only). There is intrinsic social value in volunteering which can have a value added valuation to society.
The Welfare reforms required the core jobless to engage in employability which included volunteering. All well and good but New Labour were expecting something for nothing and people still have to buy clothes, have money to socialise albeit you can claim back travel costs and reasonable expenses. Furthermore, the volunteer organisations did not receive funding to engage with the welfare reforms to take on people as volunteers and many voluntary agencies also experienced a funding crisis due to the recession. Bad timing aside for the reforms, there is still a need to think this one through further via the Office of the Third Sector.
The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) already gather information about people who volunteer, so it would not be difficult to provide "something for something" to folks who step forward and engage in the welfare reforms and do volunteering by enabling them to claim working tax credit at 16 hours or 30 hours as per paid employees. This could be seen as an anti-poverty measure and social inclusion, ie a half way house between living on benefits and moving back into work. The housing benefit anomaly would need to be sorted out though and it could be extended to pensioners to assist to lift them out of poverty too.
The other area of social policy that needs some improvement is employment rights when volunteering as you should not have to rely on mutual trust and confidence alone. The only statutory reference to volunteering is contained in the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, s3 you must not physically or mentally impair an employee or non-employee (deemed to be a volunteer). And this is existant from day 1 minute 1 of employment. New Labour did not think through this aspect of employment in the welfare reforms and it is possible to become volunteer trapped - CV is enhanced by increased skills but still no prospect of paid employment ensues. The core jobless categories include lone parents, disabled, mentally disabled, homeless, ex-prisoners, aged 50+, NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training - Youth), etc.
Volunteering is rewarding in itself but the welfare reforms has created two strands of volunteer (a) the altruistic volunteer; (b) the welfare reformer. The former is usually dependendable and reliable and in with the bricks; the latter is looking for short-term gain to move speedily on to paid employment. Without organisations gaining increased funding to cover welfare reformers they are training people who move on quickly and there may be minimal benefit to the organisation per se.
At the Ballot Box - some women in the Highlands of Scotland deliberately spoiled their ballot at the last General Election by putting "rotten egg, rotten egg, rotten egg" all the way down the ballot - they were not wrong! It is still democracy to spoil the ballot as it has to be counted. The conundrum at this General Election is twofold (a) democracy per se and (b) the need for a Hung Parliament - albeit I believe as soon as the expenses scandal was known, a Hung Parliament should have been an automatic process to suspend all MPs involved and to either (i) hold constituency elections or (ii) request the second place at the General Election to stand forward - I would have preferred the latter in hindsight.
Democracy - we do not exist in a democracy since 1999, nor judicial oligarchy, nor effective monarchy. Our laws have been enacted from the dispatch box, not the Woolsack and we have now got a politician, Jack Straw MP, with Executive powers in the judiciary when it should be a Judge with Executive powers in the Cabinet. (The same situation exists in Scotland where a solicitor has high office instead of a judge). The absence of a Judge in cabinet is a serious democratic failure (a lady chancellor might be a good idea!). There is also the real problem that the English are not devolved which causes an imbalance in political line management. It is therefore no surprise that the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, was in the courts yesterday before Lady Smith on an issue of democracy. Lady Smith found against Mr Salmond on the premis that he had not timeously dealt with the issue and that it was too late to now deal with it, it being merely a stunt and not related to the BBC's "due impartiality" test. Commonsense alone would have found for the SNP I think, three political parties have an undue advantage over the SNP who actually hold power in Scotland even although they are a small party by comparison. The issue was not a timing issue but democratic and a substantive outcome should have occurred. Moreover, even I balk at the proposal that the SNP spent £50,000 on a stunt!
Article in The Scotsman on 29 April 2010 by Tom Peterkin and John Robertson entitled "'Too Late' Alex Salmond loses battle with the BBC over debate" (Click Here)
To clarify: in law the procedure and the substantive outcome are two different issues. Quite often there is a lot of what I call procedural nonsense so as not to get to the substantive outcome. A judgment, or at least a good one, should feature both issues. Concerning the SNP v BBC dispute, if you have gone down the wrong route, it does not follow that you should continue on the wrong route where an opportunity presents to go onto the right route, ie having shown two out of the three programmes, the SNP could still have prepared to feature in the third programme over cancellation or non-distribution of the debate programme to the Scottish electorate. Not having seen the papers or Lady Smith's judgment I am wondering if the contractual matrix was three separate contracts for the programmes or one contract for three programmes, albeit it it is probably a de minimus point in any event and I don't know what body of law the case is founded in. Unfair Contract terms perhaps ...
Whilst I can see where Lady Smith is coming from and she has focused on "procedure" and time in bringing the action which is quite correct for a judgment in procedure, I am more inclined to the substantive issue and that is there is a failure of democracy yet again which is concurrent with New Labour's terms of office. I am more concerned that the parties in opposition, especially so the Liberals who have a PR ticket of "fairness", that they did not also oppose the BBC's headlining only 3 political parties and also evaded the issue of the Greens, the Independents, the looney tunes, etc. I am also concerned that the SNP had a further issue of funding the litigation which they had a 48 hour whip round to raise the £50,000 necessary for the case to be heard before Lady Smith. This raises two issues - that timeousness may have been prevented due to a funding issue and justice is therefore denied. Even late in the day having the funds to litigate should still enable justice. Furthermore, how did it manage to cost £50,000 in the first place ... or is this the cost of losing and paying the BBC's costs. Something needs to be addressed here, as New Labour has again failed at the ballot box to provide a fair process to a democratic ballot - it may be the case that international arbiters will be monitoring the ballot. (The last ballot in Scotland via Douglas Alexander MP saw widespread chaos with the ballot forms causing too many spoiled ballot papers). This time it is the failure to include the smaller parties in the widespread debate on manifesto promises to the electorate: why should this be allowed in our society in the 21st Century! Democracy has to be democratic not a whitewash or a sham. It may be the case that the electorate will deliver a Hung Parliament and spoiling the ballot paper is still democratic these days ...
posted by Lesley McDade at 11:45 am
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