Post by nickd on Sept 5, 2011 1:52:46 GMT 1
In yet another appalling example of media promoted, but government led initiative;- parents of children who play truant will risk having their child benefit axed.
Gove supports the idea as does Cameron, who carries on with his obsessional desire to breed happy families and ensure everyone is working, the fact that unemployment is said to be on the rise doesn't seem to prove a problem!
"Truants' parents may lose child benefits as unemployed are told to sign on twice as often"
4th September 2011
Plans to withdraw child-benefit payments to parents of youngsters who play truant from school are being considered by the Government.
And the unemployed are set to be forced to sign on twice as often – or have their dole cut.
The radical moves are signalled by David Cameron in an article in today’s Mail on Sunday in which he vows to smash ‘old taboos and sensitivities’ to tackle the ‘hard-core minority of families’ who wreak havoc in towns and cities.
Discipline: New Expert Adviser on Behaviour Charlie Taylor, left, looks on as Education Secretary Michael Gove talks to pupils at the Pimlico Academy in London
Scrapping child benefit for parents who fail to send their children to lessons would provoke howls of protests both from Mr Cameron’s Liberal Democrat Coalition partners and from Labour.
Mr Cameron has asked former head teacher Charlie Taylor, the Government’s adviser on discipline in schools, to lead a review by a team of experts into ways of cutting truancy, including withdrawing child benefit.
Officials stress no final decision has been made. But it is understood to have the support of Mr Cameron’s head of strategy, Steve Hilton.
Schools can already apply to courts to fine parents whose children regularly miss school for no good reason. They can be fined £50 – doubled to £100 if they fail to pay up in 42 days. If they still refuse, the fine can be raised to up to £2,000 or they can be sent to jail.
The article goes on to mention Cameron's predictable take on all of this.
Pointing the finger yet again at the claimant; - he seems pleased at the prospect of 'cutting off people's benefit entitlement at the click of a computer mouse' and thinks it wonderful that thousands of incapacitated claimants are being 'found fit fit work'.
Wrong yet again Dave!
He naively assumes people's benefit claims can be ended as easily as clicking a computer mouse; - no Dave, there's a procedure called statutory notification, decision-making & right of appeal to go through first - regardless of what you may like to see.
Those found fit for work were entitled to their benefit under legislation brought in by Cameron's government in 1995 (to hide embarrassingly high unemployment figures if I may be so bold), its replacement; - the new Employment & Support Allowance (introduced by Labour in 2007) is a completely different and much stricter test; - it has also been condemned by many;- including a government scrutiny committee. Perversely when Employment & Support Allowance was introduced Cameron said it would never work; - now he claims all the credit for how tough it is!
And please tell me how signing on twice as frequently will work when DWP Jobcentre Plus becomes distinctly minus as they drown in a sea of paperwork connected with government's ill-thought out welfare reform programme; - not to mention savage job cuts.
It makes no sense for these over privileged politicians, having no experience whatsoever of the benefits system, to go spouting their opinionated views about a process they know so little about; - it's high time they got their facts right and it's time they stopped trying to buy populist headlines. There are bigger fish to go after; - they are called bankers and far more could be saved by denying them their over inflated bonuses.
It has to stop.
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033477/Truants-parents-lose-child-benefits-unemployed-told-sign-twice-often.html#ixzz1X2Bs0PqQ
