26 March 2013

Welfare Reforms: Wrong Route

The Social Security Bill that the Government is preparing to pass in Parliament is the wrong approach in an unprecedented time of high unemployment and looming redundancies.

Eileen Brown, CTU Policy Analyst says "this Bill is premised on the false ideas that unemployed people don't want to work and that there are enough jobs to be found if you really try. It's already hard for families who are looking for work; these changes only make it tougher for them to get by. We have 163,000 officially unemployed, 284,000 jobless and 111,000 wanting more work. We are seeing large scale redundancies."

"The Government needs to gear itself to job creation and support for people who are out of work and at risk of losing their jobs. Instead these will introduce sanctions and bring in draconian measures like drug testing that even their official advice was against. They are also preparing to contract out the work testing procedures to private providers. Contracting out of work testing was disastrous when it was done in the United Kingdom with a massive upswing in appeals against decisions, most of which were successful, extremely critical independent audits and huge street protests."

"The threat of sanctions and other punitive measures that this Bill brings in will force people into low quality, low paid work with risks to them and their families. Government should be helping to create jobs that are decently paid and provide good employment opportunities and safe and secure work."

"Unemployment can be reduced by active job policies and intensive programmes rather than sanctions for breaches of social obligations. This Bill is taking us in the wrong direction."

ENDS

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