In praise of Iain Duncan Smith's Welfare Reforms

Thanks, Marelli.
Just a bit of information about zero hours contracts. In 2012-13 there were 67000 NHS workers on zero hours contracts.
Last Easter I was in hospital. One night for a few hours there was one male nurse and no female nurses, on the ward of 5 bays with possibly 6 patients in each bay. There were six in the bay I was in and only two of us could get out of bed.
Apparently they could not get any bank nurses to cover for sickness. A nurse who should have been on had fallen down a couple of steps and been sent home as she had twisted her ankle.
In the same report, there were discovered to be 300,000 social care workers on zero hours contracts.
Neither of these two occupations should rely on people who are not on proper contracts.

I believe zero hours contracts were originally used in businesses that are more prone to peaks and troughs in their need for labour, such as seasonal work in the holiday industry, agriculture, etc. Those that entered into these sorts of contracts were, I think, people who had commitments that prevented them from sticking to a rigid work schedule throughout the year (such as students).

I think this type of contract is fine if it works for the benefit of employer and employee in that they both require flexibility.

Now we are seeing all types of workers of all ages, qualifications and skills, being unable to get a job unless they accept being at an employer's beck and call, as well as not being guaranteed a minimum number of hours' work. It seems to me that these contracts are a way of employers side-stepping hard-won workers' rights.

Of course, this sort of system saves money and increases profits for the employers in the short term, but I wonder if, in the long term, it will be counter-productive. These zero hours contracts will, I think, result in demoralised, bitter workers who will have no sense of pride or fulfilment in their work or loyalty towards their employers.

Anyone else watch The Big Benefits Row on Channel 5?
Edwina Curry telling everyone to get a job.
White Dee had had a very nice haircut. At one point she said that the bookies must have lost a lot tonight, because they would have had a lot of money on her being the first to swear. She was very restrained, more than could be said for Edwina, who was, quite frankly, rude to other panellists.

White Dee probably has a better PR agent than Edwina these days.

The other one on Edwina's side was Katie Hopkins, who can shout just as loudly. Ken Livingstone was on to start off with, but left at the first interval. Not surprised with all those shouty women.
Jack Monroe swore first, at Edwina, who was being rude about her background. She works for Oxfam doing research into poverty. She has a very interesting website/blog agirlcalledjack.com

I do think zero hours contracts can work but they are now being offered when in fact the job is full time. Students often used to be given them in retail and that suited both parties.

It does not surprise me that they are being used and possibly abused in the NHS or for Social Workers and, apparently, they are being used for NQTs in schools and colleges. Certainly colleges seem to use the "variable hours" contracts they have employing the same teachers year upon year because these variable hours are paid less than a permanently contracted teacher. This can have the same affect on getting mortgages, etc., as a zero hours contract. The turnover of staff because of these contracts has a detrimental affect on all the staff in a hospital, social services team or college or school.

Having said that IDS is right to look at whether the system is producing the results we want. In a programme on television some time ago they took a "single" mother back to the beginning of the benefits system (1948 I think) A lot of things were worse; she would have been an "unmarried mother" so not entitled to housing or support but they put her into a vicarage as she would probably have charitable help. This was a real shock for her. They then got her into a job - the unemployment office helped with this and she got free nursery care while she worked as it would still have been available just after the war. When they took her "back to today" she could not work as she would not be able to afford nursery care. It would surely be better to pay for nursery care than pay the mums to stay at home.

I caught the end on 5+. Edwina Currie was, I thought, incredibly smug and extremely rude.

I thought Jack Monroe was rightly furious when Edwina Currie made sneering remarks about her family. Even if it were the case, which Jack Monroe disputed, that her family had been relatively well off, isn't it a sort of reverse snobbery to suggest that anyone from a fairly comfortable or privileged background could not genuinely care about social justice?

We gave up on The Big Benefits Row after Edwina and Jack got heated. It stopped being a discussion long before. Why does that man just rile people into a shouting match?
Zero hours can work. When my lot were little I worked zero hours at Norwich Union for several years. The work wasn't onerous and could be left easily in school holidays or if an offspring was sick. No pressure. Got paid for what I did. Gave me a reference and a way back into a 'proper' job when the children were older. Perfect. But now it's being used all the time for jobs which aren't one offs or need full time cover. Employers are taking advantage And so it's got a bad name. Such a shame.

Zero hours leaves all the power with the employer. I was employed as a "saturday" sales assistant 40 years ago, by a large chain store. I'd stressed at interview, I could only work Saturdays due to child care. I was offered the job, but for the next couple of years subjected to huge pressure via 7.30 am phone calls, to come into work that day. I was lucky, in having a Saturday contract, because I kept my job despite (in the main) refusing to work extra days. I simply couldn't, had no child care. If I'd been zero hours, I feel sure I'd have got no work as a result of not being seen as keen enough.

After I retired as a full time nurse I went on a zero hours (bank) contract. It was great, did what I wanted when I wanted and said no thanks when I wanted.

Bank work or supply teaching is not the same as zero hours contracts as I understand it. A lot of zero hours contracts mean that the employee cannot work elsewhere, but is on permanent contract to one employer.
Therefore, unlike with teacher supply, which I used to do, you cannot pick and choose your schools. It was possible because my husband had a job that paid the bills. My work was extra, and we did not have to rely on my pay to pay the mortgage until we moved down to Hampshire. We soon moved back up North.
As this discussion shows, we do not understand what it means. This is why Vince Cable needs to hold a public enquiry into zero hours contracts. At the moment it appears that the workers are exploited by this contract. Cable is going to hold an enquiry in secret. That's wrong.

I think one of the problems Brandawymms, is that you can no longer say "no thanks" when you want to.

Many people on zero hours, minimum wage contracts face huge problems claiming either tax credits or housing benefits without which they are unable to house and feed themselves and their families despite being as hard working as anyone in full time stable positions.

As to benefit reforms - think about all those who are dying destitute...see this article for just a few examples, the actual numbers are horrific. It does not take much for carefully constructed life to fall apart, illness, divorce, redundancy and now a very, very fragile safety net.

[[ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-atos-shame-sick-and-disabled-benefits-applicants-forced-to-go-weeks-without-money-as-a-result-of-new-rules-for-appeals-9107586.html]]

Quote "*People with serious disabilities and health conditions are being left for weeks with no financial support by Government changes to benefit assessments.*

Under new rules introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions in October, anyone wanting to appeal a decision that they are fit to work first has to have all their paperwork looked at again, while receiving no sickness benefits. The Citizens Advice Bureau believes this will result in thousands of people being wrongly forced to survive on no income at all.

The Government said that this "mandatory reconsideration" would cut down on bureaucracy and take just two weeks, but some disabled and sick people are being wrongly assessed and left with no support for months on end.

Kate Green MP, the shadow minister for equalities, said that "the government are putting vulnerable people in an impossible position".

"They urgently need to get a grip to ensure the system is fair and effective,” she added.

The Work Capability Assessment, which until recently was exclusively carried out by Atos healthcare, is so notoriously slapdash that in 2012 more than 42 per cent of appeals against decisions were upheld. Their poor performance is understood to have prompted the assessments contract being put out to tender.

Blunders include ruling that a 39-year-old woman from Livingstone with a brain tumour was fit to work just weeks before she died and a double heart and lung transplant patient from Essex dying nine days after being declared well enough for employment.

Previously if a controversial assessment wrongly concluded someone was well enough to work, people could appeal immediately, and received benefits while they did this. Now a formal appeal can only be launched after this reconsideration process is completed."

I was just thinking it's no wonder the Tories want out of the EU. The number of Tory laws that have been called into question as far as human rights is concerned seems to grow day by day.
YaYa, this is just a continuation of the Tory feeling that they are right, no matter what.
The Lewisham Hospital debacle meant that Hunt has changed the law so that any hospital that is doing well can be taken over by a failing hospital if it fits their plans. The same with schools and with the bedroom tax. They are now trying to close the loophole which they forgot about when they planned to get rid of benefit claimants.
I know we are not supposed to crossthread on here, but surely even Tories can see a plot somewhere.
Can someone please shoot the lot of them so we can start again with a government that cares about the whole population instead of just their cronies?

Such as Labour...?

Even New Labour did not make such a mess of the NHS or force people out of their homes illegally.
With my mother being a nurse, and my husband being a diabetic since he was 11, then falling off a ladder and breaking his back, becoming doubly incontinent, then getting cerebellar ataxia, then dying of brain cancer, I have had quite a lot to do with the NHS over the years. It has never been anything like as bad as it is now under this shambles, the government which said no top-down reorganisation, and it was safe in their hands.
I have no respect for anyone who sticks up for them.
I assume you do not know anyone who claims benefits, Ana.

Of course I do, durhamjen. You seem very angry, for good reason I'm sure, but it's all getting a bit 'let's blame the tories for everything', as though Labout has all the answers.

Tories have been in for 4 years now. They cannot blame Labour for the mess in the NHS or the bedroom tax or selling off all the council houses and the gerrymandering which is following again.

durhamjen

'I have no respect for anyone who sticks up for them' .

By that I take it you mean any GN who does not share your point of view also.

I appreciate you have had bad experiences and I understand how you feel, I will also defend your right to make that statement but it is not just you and yours who have had contact with the NHS and been served very badly by it. I urge you to remember that under successive governments there has been malpractice. It does not belong to Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Monster Raving Loony.

I would also like to say I should imagine we all know somebody on benefits.

Stafford Hospital problems occurred under Labour,

I do not blame the Tories for all the problems, but I do blame them for using the worldwide financial crisis to force unnecessary austerity measures on the country, and cause much misery. Their aim is to dismantle the welfare state and introduce a privatised version of it dominated by big-business and profit, and they are doing so without a mandate, but with the support of the Liberals. Shame on them! Sadly, I don't have much confidence in Labour either. So its back to my cup of cocoa, now.

New Labour certainly didn't get everything right, Iraq being a prime example. The level of investment in Sure Start family centres, education and the nhs was positive, and necessary. The cuts ensure that family centres and family support services are being slashed, alongside benefits. Alongside that, the government/some of the media, are painting benefit claimants as feckless scroungers. It's like groundhog day -

I certainly don't think Labour cared two hoots about the electorate when they were in. They just cared about keeping themselves in power, and feathering their own nests (also tories and lib dems before I get an angry response )
Hospitals were in a terrible state. Liverpool Pathway anyone? Stafford Hospital? Targets at the expense of care. I had a major op during that time and ward sister was tearing her hair out at the daft "rules" introduced and paperwork.

Sorry, Margaret, but do you think the hospitals are in a better state now?
Last week, there was a woman recorded phoning up for an ambulance because she thought her husband was having a heart attack. The fourth phonecall, she said, "I think he's just died." All the ambulances were stacked up outside A&E because there were no beds in the hospital for patients to be moved to.
My husband died two years ago in the Liverpool care pathway. It was a good way to go for him.
Interesting statement on False Economy website. They have a link to the Office of National Statistics website. On 24th January, Cameron told parliament that wages in every percentile except the top one went up last year. The ONS states that every year since 2010 wages have gone down.
This information was put into the public domain on 31st January. Cameron must have known about it. I have not heard him apologise for misleading the house yet.

I am from Stafford.