honestly, i wonder sometimes, whether it's a generation thing, like favoutite music...plus i'm aware that my 'formative years' in the old DHSS started in the early seventies, and on the national insurance side...a lovely lady called hilda became my unofficial mentor on the pensions section - she was part time tribunal clerk, (there were local appeal tribunals in those days) and she had started pre-1948 on (NI) card exchange, done every job going, and knew everything! : )
but i do think there are all sorts of things that we, focused on ss law and rights, haven't quite caught up with... it has been a long time since the DSS was a clockwork admin machine with the law at the heart of it, and administering the benfit system it's raison d'etre. one look at the DWP business plan makes that clear. (btw, does anyone know what the Customer Insight Unit is??) what i don't like about it is that there's a lot of meddling and fiddling about that i assume comes out of the social security budget, when it is social engineering spending, but accountability-wise, the size of the department's budget is always part of all the tutting and demonizing of social security claimants, so that's all right then...nobody cares, apart from Mr. Hain, when he's giving a speech...
now it seems that 'controlling the gateway' is the thing, and all the rights in the world don't mean anything if you can't access them, and the processors don't know about them...
the contracting out of 'pathways to work' -the stick and the orange coloured stick approach... a friend of mine who works in that field recently applied for a job with one of the successful contractors and attended an interview day, in which the candidates had to give a short presentation on 'long term unemployment is due to personal failings'... this was identified as a trick question, and the presentation prepared on the scenario of a real live person with learning difficulties, dyslexia and epilepsy, who had left 'special' school at 15 unable to read or write, count, tell the time etc... the thrust of the talk being that you cannot provide the help and support such people need to get into employment by blaming them or regarding them as failures... guess what...? it wasn't a trick question, and the interviewer blokey (believed to have set the task) was pretty hot under the collar about his presentation, which was definitely meant as a serious proposition. my friend is an experienced employment adviser, who has worked with people with mental health problems, ethnic minorities, and all sorts of folks with barriers of various kinds. he told me he thought the other candidates were a good bunch (he would have employed them!) mainly with 'sales' backgrounds.
go figure... : )
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