Exposed: The Government’s Love Affair with Private Companies

It has been announced that the Government intends to privatize the benefit system. At current schemes like New Deal and the upcoming Flexible New Deal scheme are outsourced to the private sector (and third sector), soon Jobcentre Plus will be run by private companies* on like an franchise model and before you know it, benefits will be paid by private companies too. Why? Ipswich Unemployed Action explains why…(* I once joked that the Ipswich Jobcentre Plus office in St Felix House will one day have a Provided by Tesco logo outside. It appears however that it will sooner rather than later come true.)

Foreword (skip if you wish)

Firstly due to the large proportion of the nation with the attitude of fuming once a new scandal comes out. The general feeling is allow these crooks to waste money we pay in taxes – we have just got to put up with it, keep our head down and life is so much more bearable to live without having to worry about it too much – politicians will be politicians and that is how things are, there is no other option – then come along privatization and to some people it seems a good idea: “people who care about the money more” (yes profits! but giving you a worse deal). It seems whatever party you choose: Labour or Conservative they are both the same in what you get (maybe a slight variation in policies) and the other parties are almost non-existent because most people never choose to vote for them.

The MPs’ expenses scandal is a big insult – 80% of law is decided directly in Europe outside Parliament to which taxpayers fork out billions of pounds annually for. We joined Europe because of the “Cold War” for extra support, now that period ended a long time ago…   all what happened is the odd-bods of Europe want to create a 2nd United States, and even though our politicians do 80% less work than they did before joining Europe, the pay packets are ever increasing andas we found out their expenses are rapidly on the increase too. In order to get rid of the corrupt state we live in we need to choose new MPs from different political parties. It wasn’t only Labour who are invovled in the scandal.

What am I getting at? The new plans are aimed at making the poor poorer… Whilst MP’s receive huge pay packets and expenses. The balance in the system has completely been lost.  Reading this site you may have realised that unemployment benefits are not proportionate to what they used to be. Most people (especially oldskool) see everyone who is claiming Jobseekers Allowance as those who don’t want to work and are getting the same rate as back-in-the-day. In fact, since it was renamed Jobseekers Allowance the benefit payments have halfed – also realise in addition of inflation the Government has stuck so much taxation into different elements of business and “red tape” that business obviously include them in prices.

The Jobcentre even commits unlawful/illegal acts into preventing genuine claimants from fulfilling their legal entitlements:

• “Signing off” claimants without prior notice.
  Yes, thats right – the Jobcentre will just sign claimants off without notifiying them. Thus it is only until your payment don’t go in or until you sign on next when you realise what has happened. You normally receive something after 3 weeks but by then you have already clocked on with whats happening. These are typically because of clerical errors at the Jobcentre however results in payment being stopped and a couple of weeks to sort out. 
• Not being available to work
  This might sound obvious and perfectly reasonable but the simple task of getting on public transport (which arrives late) therefore arriving late for an appointment at the Jobcentre whoms clocks are usually a few minutes forward results in your benefit being stopped. How is this not being available for work?  Considering the timescale of being able to be offered a position of employment so what if you aren’t available to work for the entire week (as long as you are the next)?
• “No Answer at Home”
  Never submit a claim online. This seems a clever way of avoiding the long waiting on the telephone to make a telephone claim however at the time I made a new claim online I was mostly indoors during office hours waiting for the telephone call from them confirming details while recording your voice in case you werent genuine. I heard nothing from them. Several days later I got a letter asking me to phone them as they couldn’t get through. I checked the answer phone… no messages, no missed calls. I don’t even recall any telephone calls during office hours in the few days after I made that claim therefore they couldn’t have rang while phone in use. I rang up and they stuck the date to claim from as that date and NOT the date I made the online claim. They tried to get out of paying almost 2 weeks money. I appealed and backdated to the date I made the online claim and got the money in a month once it was all processed. The truth was no one bothered to ring and they had the policy of moving the claim start day to the date you phoned them to chase it up. They tried to wriggle out of it but I printed the online claim out so they couldn’t claim I did the claim via telephone.

I could go on…

The Government has a big thing regarding Jobseekers Allowance and New Deal… it aims to reduce child poverty…  I couldn’t quite understand it as to be on New Deal you have to be 18 or over so not a child… and if you had any children the JSA rate and their policies wont do anything to help reduce child poverty. Also, to mention that the Government is guilty of a £¾ billion underspend of Tax Credits… that is a scheme designed to help families.  Many people may wonder why the government loves to grab with one hand and give back with the other… it is simple, the government does quite a good job with taxation, however, when it comes to giving any form of benefit back they like putting measures in place to prevent people applying for them.

The relevance between MP expenses and Jobseekers Allowance is Parliament is doing its best to stop the poor getting benefits yet well paid MP’s took advantage (until when they were recently rumbled) of the no caps MP allowances benefit system. Why were the poor subsidising their  massive unrequired benefits?

Why does the Government love the private sector so much?

 Simple. The reasons are as follows:

1. Secret information can stay secret. (Secret not meaning classified)
   The Freedom of Information Act allows anyone to make a request for information (that wont affect national security etc.) in the public sector. You can’t use it to find out information in the private sector. If delegated from public sector to private sector: This allows statistics to remain private and not displayed for public display. It also allows for statistics to be made up or otherwise distorted. At current any issues raised in Parliament regarding post office closures for example are  referred to the Chief Executive of Post Office Ltd. I am not fully aware of the law regarding the post office but it likely means that this separate company has no legal obligation to the state and that such a request can be denied, distorted or even lied as the CEO has obligation to the company more than the Government. It also means that elements such as internal procedures can remain Commercial in Confidence even if in breach of the law.
2. Lack of Financial transparency.
   At current the Government has to publish expenditure. Even as mentioned in #1, if you done a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how much Parliament spent on biscuits for example they would have to respond telling you the exact figure. However, a private company only needs to produce consolidated accounts such as expenditure on staff, capital etc. and the annual acounts are made available to the public a long time afterwards so they are always outdated.
3. Reduction of the cabinets’ responsibilities.
   At current, the Prime Minister our #1 representative gets the main stick for everything. In respects to DWP, Secretary of State (Work and Pensions) James Purnell MP is accountable. If the Jobcentre etc. is run by private businesses he would only hold responsibilities for the contract between the Government and the company. The company would be seen as responsible for the failings. It would also mean less work and probably more pay.