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Showing posts with label policies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label policies. Show all posts
Monday, 24 March 2014
A citizen’s income
A interesting idea I’ve come across via the green party I’m not sure if it was their idea originally but a citizens income guaranteeing all a basic standard of living seems a really positive interesting idea and worth exploring more.
I know there will be the claims of where wills the incentive to work be if we all get paid anyway let me explain.
Work dominates our lives at present it forms the basis to much of what we strive for as wage labourers.
Let’s not forget that a colossal amount of work is done in society that is not formally regarded as ‘work’. I am talking specifically about parenting, care of the disabled by family members, and voluntary work in the community. At the moment, much of this work goes unremunerated – and is even regarded as inferior to proper, ‘paid’ work in the formal sense. (”What are those mothers doing at home when they should be out looking for a job?” is a question often barked, usually at poor mothers). A CI finally provides the financial space for this socially invaluable work to happen. What sort of a society are we if we don’t recognise the importance of these tasks?
There is also the class politics of this – how it affects the relationship between labour and capital. It seems to me that ‘welfare reform’ has a very specific agenda, which is to create a more pliable workforce. If people in work know that there is no longer much of a safety net, then they will hold on more tenaciously to jobs with bad conditions and bad pay. All of that means higher profits. A Citizen’s Income – a new, bolstered welfare state – begins to tip the bargaining power back in favour of labour. This is why a CI should be taken up by the trade union movement or at least explored to its benefits.
But for me, personally, the best argument for a Citizen’s Income is to improve public health, through the stress relief that it would bring. I write this as someone who has been on and off benefits in the past few years, and I can personally testify that the stress of it all sometimes made me feel stressed. As the authors of the Spirit Level suggest, what could fill the explanatory gap between economic inequality and poor social outcomes is, simply, stress. Obesity, depression, addiction – all rooted in the intensely stressful society we live in. A Citizen’s Income – as well as being profoundly redistributive – would, in one fell swoop, lift a corrosive level of stress from our society.
And what of the cost and the politics of it all? Well, it’s far more politically palatable than it may sound – as a benefit that would be universal, the divide and rule strategies used by the right to pit the working poor against the unemployed would be blunted. It’s possible that some people would simply not accept the principle that you can get something for nothing, but that is merely because people have internalised the twisted principles of capitalism: and that’s something we’ll have to fight against. It’s far more affordable than it sounds as well: as the Citizen’s Income Trust have demonstrated, the cost would work out at roughly the same as the current welfare bill, which – we must not forget, the vast bulk of which is pensions, housing benefit, and working tax credit.
These are just initial thoughts. It’s possible there are serious drawbacks I have over-looked. Two spring to mind immediately. First, the definition of citizenship could be open to abuse – excluding those with a criminal record, recent immigrants etc. Second, contrary to my previous point about the class implications of a CI, it could entrench poor working conditions. It would be imperative those industrial battles continued. But for just now at least, I think this is an idea worth fighting for.
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Housing benifit crisis brings despair , united response needed
A father killed himself after his housing benefit was cut, an inquest heard on Tuesday 23 August. Richard Sanderson of Southfields, south west London, committed suicide after receiving a letter from Wandsworth council informing him his housing benefit would be cut by £30 a month.
Mr Sanderson's death came a month after the government capped housing benefit (Local Housing Allowance) at between £250 and £400 a week depending on property size. Recording a verdict of suicide, the Coroner said: "He carried out a considered act in response to his inability to find employment and the fact that his housing benefit was about to be cut and the family would have faced having nowhere to live."
Merton council estimates that 3,000 people in the area will be hit by government housing benefit cuts. Annys Darkwa, from a local housing charity, was quoted as saying that tragic cases like this would become more frequent in the coming months because housing benefit cuts would hit the most vulnerable the hardest.
Mrs Darkwa said: "We are going to see this happen more and more as we expect 80,000 people across London to be evicted due to housing benefit cuts." Publicly, ministers deny that their policies will produce homelessness but leaked correspondence between ministers' aides has shown that they have been coolly discussing 80,000 homeless as a result of this stage of the housing benefit cuts. When fully implemented the figures could rise still higher.
Even before the housing benefit cuts began to bite, homelessness was on the rise because of the impact of recession. For example, in the London Borough of Haringey, which includes Tottenham where August's riots began, applications to the council for assistance due to homelessness were up by 83% year on year in the first three months of 2011. For every family making such an application many more will be suffering hardship but avoiding homelessness.
Next year, further changes will mean that single people between 25 and 35 years old will no longer be able to claim for a flat and will be expected to live in cheap shared accommodation despite the shortage of such accommodation.
Many such people already have to make up their rent because they cannot find anywhere cheap enough to be covered by existing benefit rates. In Haringey alone, for example, this change will hit 810 young people.
The government claimed that rents would fall but in fact they have continued to rise. According to the latest buy-to-let index from LSL Property Services the average rent in England and Wales rose by 0.6% to £705 a month in July.
The average rent is now £29 a month higher than in July last year. London had the greatest annual rent increase (7.9%) to hit a new high of £1,009 a month.
This crisis hits low-paid workers as well as people entirely dependent on benefits. In London around a third of people getting housing benefits are workers in low-paid jobs. Many others who cannot claim benefit are finding rocketing rent levels very hard to pay.
The combination of rising rents and cutting benefits is placing people in an agonising vice and none of the main parties speaks up for them - Labour had its own plans for benefit caps when in office.
We need an energetic trade union and community campaign against low pay, for emergency rent caps instead of benefit caps and for a programme of social house building and renovation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this issue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting public sector cuts
Mass action can stop
The fact that Labour in their 113 years in government in the so called "boom" years failed to build anywhere near enough housing renders them absent in this debate. We are still feeling the effects from Margret Thatchers days of where council housing was sold off to the private sector and people could buy their own homes. One of the worst things ever to happen to this country i feel. It moved people on and gave them a false sense of a advancement in class, many wallowed in their greed and it was actively encouraged by the then tory government. The fact that no government since labour or tory has done anything about a mass housing crisis is a disgrace in my view. The fact that we even have homelessness in this country one of the richest in the world is just appauling . We can afford to build more houses and invest in peoples future but housing builders and the governemnt wont do it as they see no profit in building social housing they feel its a waste of money and too much of a cost and they get very little rent back. This highlights again the ruthlessness of the capitalist system that greed and profit comes before peoples needs. A change is needed and the trade union movement should be putting housing at the top of their agenda i would say.
Mr Sanderson's death came a month after the government capped housing benefit (Local Housing Allowance) at between £250 and £400 a week depending on property size. Recording a verdict of suicide, the Coroner said: "He carried out a considered act in response to his inability to find employment and the fact that his housing benefit was about to be cut and the family would have faced having nowhere to live."
Merton council estimates that 3,000 people in the area will be hit by government housing benefit cuts. Annys Darkwa, from a local housing charity, was quoted as saying that tragic cases like this would become more frequent in the coming months because housing benefit cuts would hit the most vulnerable the hardest.
Mrs Darkwa said: "We are going to see this happen more and more as we expect 80,000 people across London to be evicted due to housing benefit cuts." Publicly, ministers deny that their policies will produce homelessness but leaked correspondence between ministers' aides has shown that they have been coolly discussing 80,000 homeless as a result of this stage of the housing benefit cuts. When fully implemented the figures could rise still higher.
Even before the housing benefit cuts began to bite, homelessness was on the rise because of the impact of recession. For example, in the London Borough of Haringey, which includes Tottenham where August's riots began, applications to the council for assistance due to homelessness were up by 83% year on year in the first three months of 2011. For every family making such an application many more will be suffering hardship but avoiding homelessness.
Next year, further changes will mean that single people between 25 and 35 years old will no longer be able to claim for a flat and will be expected to live in cheap shared accommodation despite the shortage of such accommodation.
Many such people already have to make up their rent because they cannot find anywhere cheap enough to be covered by existing benefit rates. In Haringey alone, for example, this change will hit 810 young people.
The government claimed that rents would fall but in fact they have continued to rise. According to the latest buy-to-let index from LSL Property Services the average rent in England and Wales rose by 0.6% to £705 a month in July.
The average rent is now £29 a month higher than in July last year. London had the greatest annual rent increase (7.9%) to hit a new high of £1,009 a month.
This crisis hits low-paid workers as well as people entirely dependent on benefits. In London around a third of people getting housing benefits are workers in low-paid jobs. Many others who cannot claim benefit are finding rocketing rent levels very hard to pay.
The combination of rising rents and cutting benefits is placing people in an agonising vice and none of the main parties speaks up for them - Labour had its own plans for benefit caps when in office.
We need an energetic trade union and community campaign against low pay, for emergency rent caps instead of benefit caps and for a programme of social house building and renovation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this issue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting public sector cuts
Mass action can stop
The fact that Labour in their 113 years in government in the so called "boom" years failed to build anywhere near enough housing renders them absent in this debate. We are still feeling the effects from Margret Thatchers days of where council housing was sold off to the private sector and people could buy their own homes. One of the worst things ever to happen to this country i feel. It moved people on and gave them a false sense of a advancement in class, many wallowed in their greed and it was actively encouraged by the then tory government. The fact that no government since labour or tory has done anything about a mass housing crisis is a disgrace in my view. The fact that we even have homelessness in this country one of the richest in the world is just appauling . We can afford to build more houses and invest in peoples future but housing builders and the governemnt wont do it as they see no profit in building social housing they feel its a waste of money and too much of a cost and they get very little rent back. This highlights again the ruthlessness of the capitalist system that greed and profit comes before peoples needs. A change is needed and the trade union movement should be putting housing at the top of their agenda i would say.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Labours plans to focus schooling more for working life, time to end this conveyer belt of workers for profit
In the papers today on sunday one of the Labour partys first new policies from its think tank of new policy ideas has formed and yes it is one i am dead against already.
Not its principle as helping people to be ready for work is important of course but the fact that this is more tinkering with the capitalist system to create a mass workforce to be making more profits for the few not the many.
Any secondary school pupils not planning to go to university would be given a clearer "route into work" under Labour party plans for a new education contract between the individual and the state.
Andy Burnham, the shadow education secretary, will this week reveal plans which would aim to give every secondary school pupil a path to employment if they met a set of required standards under a revamped curriculum more geared to the world of work.
The idea, one of the first to emerge from Labour's policy commissions, reflects its view that current thinking is geared too much to those heading to university and leaves the "forgotten half" languishing with little hope, having studied subjects that are too often ill-suited to modern working life.
Burnham's idea would involve a radical reshaping of the curriculum so that it offered a much wider choice of subjects than those included in education secretary Michael Gove's English baccalaureate. More vocational subjects would be included, such as engineering, business studies and information and communications technology.
"Latin is in and engineering is out [of the baccalaureate]. Why? It is the thinking of the 1950s," Burnham said. "I want to give a clear message of hope to every young person that says: if you work hard and get up to the required standard, you can go on to something of value."
While stressing the ideas were still in the planning stage, he made clear that a further expansion of apprenticeships in the public and private sectors would be needed if the government was to meet its obligations under the contract.
This is all well and good but just dealing with the initial thoughts, Where are these so called jobs going to come from Mr Burnham ? and who is going to fund these ideas with school budgets being cut hugely during the con-dem rule.
But this brings me to my main point that i disagree with the way capitalism works, this goes without saying but one of the worst parts of it is the fact we dont go to school to learn or to further our knowledge at all its all false that we do. In reality as this article from the Guardian confirms and Labour confirm going to school and learning is all to get you ready to work. To become that cog in a wheel of a profit making company. In other words to begin exploiting others. All my time through school i was discouraged in doing things that might help others rather to focus on myself and my own goals. This is capitalism at its very worst. I may sound cynical by saying this but i firmly believe our schools are not there to help us learn and further our knowledge in general. They do to some extent but its all geared around getting you in teh frame of mind to being a worker and as a result you will be joining the millions already oppressed out there who face a tough life working all hours under the sun just to get by. What a existence really you may say. Sadly this is the grim reality of what the tories and new labour want from us out of our school life.
All the time i was at school i was constantly asked what do you wan to do when you leave school. I still dont know to this day, does this make me less normal ? no not at all many dont know what they want to do when they leave school. But i do work now and its good but i dont enjoy it, i work because i need to not because i want to or enjoy it.
Under socialism learning and school life would not be limited to say the age of 18 then you go and get a job. The cut down in the working hours a week to a initial limit of 35 hours per week decreasing as quickly as we can to even less will provide millions of jobs and mean we have plenty of time to socialise, learn, take part in a trade union and get involved in community schemes and building society for the better.
This is the kind of world i'd rather live in, not the one where the next pay cheque means everything and what grades you get in school determines where we end up in life. I wanta fair society for all not just the few. This can only be achieved i believe through full democratic socialism where the economy is run in the interests of the many not just the few.
Not its principle as helping people to be ready for work is important of course but the fact that this is more tinkering with the capitalist system to create a mass workforce to be making more profits for the few not the many.
Any secondary school pupils not planning to go to university would be given a clearer "route into work" under Labour party plans for a new education contract between the individual and the state.
Andy Burnham, the shadow education secretary, will this week reveal plans which would aim to give every secondary school pupil a path to employment if they met a set of required standards under a revamped curriculum more geared to the world of work.
The idea, one of the first to emerge from Labour's policy commissions, reflects its view that current thinking is geared too much to those heading to university and leaves the "forgotten half" languishing with little hope, having studied subjects that are too often ill-suited to modern working life.
Burnham's idea would involve a radical reshaping of the curriculum so that it offered a much wider choice of subjects than those included in education secretary Michael Gove's English baccalaureate. More vocational subjects would be included, such as engineering, business studies and information and communications technology.
"Latin is in and engineering is out [of the baccalaureate]. Why? It is the thinking of the 1950s," Burnham said. "I want to give a clear message of hope to every young person that says: if you work hard and get up to the required standard, you can go on to something of value."
While stressing the ideas were still in the planning stage, he made clear that a further expansion of apprenticeships in the public and private sectors would be needed if the government was to meet its obligations under the contract.
This is all well and good but just dealing with the initial thoughts, Where are these so called jobs going to come from Mr Burnham ? and who is going to fund these ideas with school budgets being cut hugely during the con-dem rule.
But this brings me to my main point that i disagree with the way capitalism works, this goes without saying but one of the worst parts of it is the fact we dont go to school to learn or to further our knowledge at all its all false that we do. In reality as this article from the Guardian confirms and Labour confirm going to school and learning is all to get you ready to work. To become that cog in a wheel of a profit making company. In other words to begin exploiting others. All my time through school i was discouraged in doing things that might help others rather to focus on myself and my own goals. This is capitalism at its very worst. I may sound cynical by saying this but i firmly believe our schools are not there to help us learn and further our knowledge in general. They do to some extent but its all geared around getting you in teh frame of mind to being a worker and as a result you will be joining the millions already oppressed out there who face a tough life working all hours under the sun just to get by. What a existence really you may say. Sadly this is the grim reality of what the tories and new labour want from us out of our school life.
All the time i was at school i was constantly asked what do you wan to do when you leave school. I still dont know to this day, does this make me less normal ? no not at all many dont know what they want to do when they leave school. But i do work now and its good but i dont enjoy it, i work because i need to not because i want to or enjoy it.
Under socialism learning and school life would not be limited to say the age of 18 then you go and get a job. The cut down in the working hours a week to a initial limit of 35 hours per week decreasing as quickly as we can to even less will provide millions of jobs and mean we have plenty of time to socialise, learn, take part in a trade union and get involved in community schemes and building society for the better.
This is the kind of world i'd rather live in, not the one where the next pay cheque means everything and what grades you get in school determines where we end up in life. I wanta fair society for all not just the few. This can only be achieved i believe through full democratic socialism where the economy is run in the interests of the many not just the few.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
keep our prison officers jobs public, say no to privatisation
Birmingham Prison is to become the first jail in the UK to be privatised, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said.
The decision to award security firm G4S the contract to run the 1,400-inmate jail came after firms competed over the running of four prisons in England.
The Prison Officers' Association called the decision "disgraceful" and has not ruled out taking industrial action.
Mr Clarke told MPs the "military are involved" in contingency plans should prison officers stage a strike.
Thirteen private prisons already exist in the UK - 11 in England in Wales, and two in Scotland - but this is the first existing public sector prison to be contracted out.
Mr Clarke has said the move will save money and improve performance on issues such as cutting reoffending rates.
Hundreds of prison officers held a meeting outside Birmingham Prison minutes after the announcement was made. The union told its staff to turn up as normal on Friday, when a branch meeting will be held.
Although prison officers are banned from going on strike, the strength of feeling is such that some kind of spontaneous action is a "distinct possibility", said BBC Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw.
The Prison Reform Trust said there was a question mark over whether increasing privatisation was a "good way" of improving the system.
Danny Shaw
Home affairs correspondent, BBC News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The private sector has operated newly-built prisons for almost 20 years.
Indeed, Ken Clarke, who was responsible for the Birmingham decision, became home secretary in April 1992, just days after Britain's first ever private jail opened - the Wolds, in East Yorkshire.
Across the UK, 12 other jails are now privately-managed - but none was previously in the public sector.
It's this - the transfer of a publicly-run jail into a private one - that's so angered the unions.
Not only are they worried that it'll bring job cuts and a reduction in union membership, they're concerned the privatisation bandwagon will roll on.
Although prison officers are banned from going on strike, the strength of feeling is such that some kind of spontaneous action is a distinct possibility.
The last time did that, in a pay dispute in 2007, 20,000 members walked out.
In his announcement Mr Clarke also told MPs that G4S would run the proposed Featherstone 2 prison, a new jail opening near Wolverhampton, while Serco would continue to run Doncaster Prison, which was built by a private company.
Doncaster will become the first prison to be run on a "payment by results" basis, with Serco getting its full payment only if reoffending rates were reduced, Mr Clarke told the Commons.
The other prison in the competition, Buckley Hall, in Rochdale, will continue to be run by HM Prison Service, he said.
Workers 'betrayed'
The competition between public and private bidders to run the prisons was launched by the last Labour government, in 2009.
Birmingham jail's 752 staff were told the result of the tender at noon, BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said.
He said the Prison Officers' Association (POA) had a long-standing mandate from its members to take industrial action if any prisons were contracted out to the private sector.
In a statement, Steve Gillan, general secretary of the POA, said: "This is a disgraceful decision. Prisons should not be run for the benefit of shareholders nor for profit.
"The state has a duty to those imprisoned by the criminal justice system and this coalition government have betrayed loyal public sector workers for their friends in the private sector."
He later added: "We will not make a knee-jerk reaction. We will study what we can do and take direction from our members, but we will not rule out industrial action."
The Birmingham prison officers returned to the jail following their impromptu meeting but were said to be feeling "bitter" about the announcement.
Mr Gillan said they had been working for the past two years in an atmosphere of uncertainty and added that there was "understandably a feeling of disquiet".
'Public protection'
In his statement Mr Clarke also said Wellingborough Prison, in Northamptonshire, had been withdrawn from the competition and would need to deliver the 10% efficiency savings required by all prisons over the next four years.
End Quote
Juliet Lyon
Prison Reform Trust
He said the changes would bring savings of £21m for the three existing prisons and deliver the new Feathersone 2 prison £31m cheaper than originally planned and said "cumulative savings over the lifetime of the contracts for the three existing prisons are very impressive at £216m".
Mr Clarke said: "This process shows that competition can deliver innovation, efficiency and better value for money for the taxpayer - but also that it can do so without compromising standards.
"Public protection is not just about how we manage prisons in order to punish people. It is also about how we achieve genuine and long-lasting reductions in crime, by cutting reoffending."
Mr Clarke said that central to this was the pilot payment-by-results project at Doncaster Prison, where 10% of the contract price will be held back unless the prison can cut by 5% or more the one-year reoffending rates.
Doncaster's operator Serco will work with a range of voluntary sector and other organisations to "enable them to meet the specific needs of each individual offender".
Juliet Lyon, of the Prison Reform Trust, pointed out that the UK had a higher proportion of prisoners in private hands than the US.
She added: "It's a very large proportion of people to be held in that way, given that prison is our most extreme form of punishment.
"We must make sure that there's adequate monitoring, proper checks and balances, to make sure this is done on behalf of the state and done properly.
"The real concern is about very poor reoffending rates and that's got to be improved. The question remains is it a good way of doing it to try and introduce more privatisation? Will that improve performance and accountability or will it lead to such tensions in the system that standards could in fact fall further?" she added.
The new contracts come into force from October, except Featherstone 2, which runs from April 2012.
all this adds up to more privatisation under the tories who seem driven by it. Whether they have the private sector breathing down their neck for government contracts or not this is no way to go i feel. Firstly it is disgraceful that prison officers are not allowed to go on strike. In the article it suggests they are talking amoungst themselves as to what todo but they and teh wider public must resist these moves. Lets say no to privatisation by the tories. Our prison officers do a excellent job in this country under some very tough circumstances they are faced with unruely prisoners on a daily basis and should be commended in their efforts. THis is no way to treat them by threatening to privatise their jobs and sell them off to the private sector to make anotehr quick buck out of them. I strongly oppose this move and hope others will join me in saying no to privatisation to this sector of workers.
The decision to award security firm G4S the contract to run the 1,400-inmate jail came after firms competed over the running of four prisons in England.
The Prison Officers' Association called the decision "disgraceful" and has not ruled out taking industrial action.
Mr Clarke told MPs the "military are involved" in contingency plans should prison officers stage a strike.
Thirteen private prisons already exist in the UK - 11 in England in Wales, and two in Scotland - but this is the first existing public sector prison to be contracted out.
Mr Clarke has said the move will save money and improve performance on issues such as cutting reoffending rates.
Hundreds of prison officers held a meeting outside Birmingham Prison minutes after the announcement was made. The union told its staff to turn up as normal on Friday, when a branch meeting will be held.
Although prison officers are banned from going on strike, the strength of feeling is such that some kind of spontaneous action is a "distinct possibility", said BBC Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw.
The Prison Reform Trust said there was a question mark over whether increasing privatisation was a "good way" of improving the system.
Danny Shaw
Home affairs correspondent, BBC News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The private sector has operated newly-built prisons for almost 20 years.
Indeed, Ken Clarke, who was responsible for the Birmingham decision, became home secretary in April 1992, just days after Britain's first ever private jail opened - the Wolds, in East Yorkshire.
Across the UK, 12 other jails are now privately-managed - but none was previously in the public sector.
It's this - the transfer of a publicly-run jail into a private one - that's so angered the unions.
Not only are they worried that it'll bring job cuts and a reduction in union membership, they're concerned the privatisation bandwagon will roll on.
Although prison officers are banned from going on strike, the strength of feeling is such that some kind of spontaneous action is a distinct possibility.
The last time did that, in a pay dispute in 2007, 20,000 members walked out.
In his announcement Mr Clarke also told MPs that G4S would run the proposed Featherstone 2 prison, a new jail opening near Wolverhampton, while Serco would continue to run Doncaster Prison, which was built by a private company.
Doncaster will become the first prison to be run on a "payment by results" basis, with Serco getting its full payment only if reoffending rates were reduced, Mr Clarke told the Commons.
The other prison in the competition, Buckley Hall, in Rochdale, will continue to be run by HM Prison Service, he said.
Workers 'betrayed'
The competition between public and private bidders to run the prisons was launched by the last Labour government, in 2009.
Birmingham jail's 752 staff were told the result of the tender at noon, BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said.
He said the Prison Officers' Association (POA) had a long-standing mandate from its members to take industrial action if any prisons were contracted out to the private sector.
In a statement, Steve Gillan, general secretary of the POA, said: "This is a disgraceful decision. Prisons should not be run for the benefit of shareholders nor for profit.
"The state has a duty to those imprisoned by the criminal justice system and this coalition government have betrayed loyal public sector workers for their friends in the private sector."
He later added: "We will not make a knee-jerk reaction. We will study what we can do and take direction from our members, but we will not rule out industrial action."
The Birmingham prison officers returned to the jail following their impromptu meeting but were said to be feeling "bitter" about the announcement.
Mr Gillan said they had been working for the past two years in an atmosphere of uncertainty and added that there was "understandably a feeling of disquiet".
'Public protection'
In his statement Mr Clarke also said Wellingborough Prison, in Northamptonshire, had been withdrawn from the competition and would need to deliver the 10% efficiency savings required by all prisons over the next four years.
End Quote
Juliet Lyon
Prison Reform Trust
He said the changes would bring savings of £21m for the three existing prisons and deliver the new Feathersone 2 prison £31m cheaper than originally planned and said "cumulative savings over the lifetime of the contracts for the three existing prisons are very impressive at £216m".
Mr Clarke said: "This process shows that competition can deliver innovation, efficiency and better value for money for the taxpayer - but also that it can do so without compromising standards.
"Public protection is not just about how we manage prisons in order to punish people. It is also about how we achieve genuine and long-lasting reductions in crime, by cutting reoffending."
Mr Clarke said that central to this was the pilot payment-by-results project at Doncaster Prison, where 10% of the contract price will be held back unless the prison can cut by 5% or more the one-year reoffending rates.
Doncaster's operator Serco will work with a range of voluntary sector and other organisations to "enable them to meet the specific needs of each individual offender".
Juliet Lyon, of the Prison Reform Trust, pointed out that the UK had a higher proportion of prisoners in private hands than the US.
She added: "It's a very large proportion of people to be held in that way, given that prison is our most extreme form of punishment.
"We must make sure that there's adequate monitoring, proper checks and balances, to make sure this is done on behalf of the state and done properly.
"The real concern is about very poor reoffending rates and that's got to be improved. The question remains is it a good way of doing it to try and introduce more privatisation? Will that improve performance and accountability or will it lead to such tensions in the system that standards could in fact fall further?" she added.
The new contracts come into force from October, except Featherstone 2, which runs from April 2012.
all this adds up to more privatisation under the tories who seem driven by it. Whether they have the private sector breathing down their neck for government contracts or not this is no way to go i feel. Firstly it is disgraceful that prison officers are not allowed to go on strike. In the article it suggests they are talking amoungst themselves as to what todo but they and teh wider public must resist these moves. Lets say no to privatisation by the tories. Our prison officers do a excellent job in this country under some very tough circumstances they are faced with unruely prisoners on a daily basis and should be commended in their efforts. THis is no way to treat them by threatening to privatise their jobs and sell them off to the private sector to make anotehr quick buck out of them. I strongly oppose this move and hope others will join me in saying no to privatisation to this sector of workers.
Monday, 6 December 2010
The case for keeping DLA
I have been wanting to do a blogpost on this subject for sometime. But my earlier blogpost on the governments plans to replace the disability living allowance and reform the benifit totally and this blog post here
http://carerwatch.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/welfare-system-%e2%80%98does-not-need-overhaul%e2%80%99/
have encouraged me to put my own views across in a blogpost.
I am myself registered blind. Having lost my sight back in 2004 through a rare genetic disease named Lebers optical neuropathy disease. This caused me to loose my central vision over the space of a few months. Leaving me with very little sight.
I started claiming DLA from the end of that year. I feel that DLA adds to my life. It enables me to be independant getting about to social events by taxi's which in my opinion are a rip off anyway but there we go. It enables me to pay my mum for rent to the stay in her house and furthers my life i feel.
I do think there could be changes to this benifit where people who are not that disabled or that impaired should maybe be removed from it or have their payments reduced somewhat. But the idea that the DLA is discouraging people from working is absolute nonsense as first of all the DLA is not a work based benifit. You may still claim it while you are in work. I do exactly this as i work 2 days a week currently.
It is not also there to boost your income per week, income support is there and working tax credits are there for that.
I personally can see little point in a mass over haul of this particular benifit. It is not a substitute for work and we shuld not buy the line that the government are throwing at us that it encourages people who are disabled not to work.
I feel it goes a long way to helping disabled people live a independant life. I for one will be protesting to protect the DLA if i possibly can and hope that many other blind and other disabled people join with me to oppose this disgusting move by the government.
The plan is to bring this new benifit in in 2013 with strict medical assessments taking place from then on. I fear for myself and others who will no doubt miss out on this and be left in a worse position than t hey are now.
I think this move is going totally the wrong way, we should be looking to increase the DLA to disabled people not taking it away or reforming it as they cleverly disguise it as.
Of course ther are cases wher people may be claiming it wrongly and have more sight and can cope quite well but this can easily be resolved by medical assesments and a doctors letter backing up their claims or not.
I see no need fora huge overhaul of the welfare system and the disabled benifit system at all. Just like the post i link to further up we all agree this is unessesary and heaps further missery on the less well off in this country.
To me it is a further attack on the poor and the weak. If we taxed the bankers a lot lot more and made sure to close the tax loop holes that certain companies seem to still be getting away with we could afford to support our elderly and disabled and sick properly like a proper modern country should do.
Please if you are against this move by the government and its proposals please look up my facebook page for keeping the disability living allowance
that is at the follwoing link http://is.gd/ii4D1
please join it and spread the word. If anyoen would like to help me start a campaign to protect DLA please do contact me through twitter or email
@markwrightuk88
or markwrightuk@gmail.com
many thanks for reading
http://carerwatch.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/welfare-system-%e2%80%98does-not-need-overhaul%e2%80%99/
have encouraged me to put my own views across in a blogpost.
I am myself registered blind. Having lost my sight back in 2004 through a rare genetic disease named Lebers optical neuropathy disease. This caused me to loose my central vision over the space of a few months. Leaving me with very little sight.
I started claiming DLA from the end of that year. I feel that DLA adds to my life. It enables me to be independant getting about to social events by taxi's which in my opinion are a rip off anyway but there we go. It enables me to pay my mum for rent to the stay in her house and furthers my life i feel.
I do think there could be changes to this benifit where people who are not that disabled or that impaired should maybe be removed from it or have their payments reduced somewhat. But the idea that the DLA is discouraging people from working is absolute nonsense as first of all the DLA is not a work based benifit. You may still claim it while you are in work. I do exactly this as i work 2 days a week currently.
It is not also there to boost your income per week, income support is there and working tax credits are there for that.
I personally can see little point in a mass over haul of this particular benifit. It is not a substitute for work and we shuld not buy the line that the government are throwing at us that it encourages people who are disabled not to work.
I feel it goes a long way to helping disabled people live a independant life. I for one will be protesting to protect the DLA if i possibly can and hope that many other blind and other disabled people join with me to oppose this disgusting move by the government.
The plan is to bring this new benifit in in 2013 with strict medical assessments taking place from then on. I fear for myself and others who will no doubt miss out on this and be left in a worse position than t hey are now.
I think this move is going totally the wrong way, we should be looking to increase the DLA to disabled people not taking it away or reforming it as they cleverly disguise it as.
Of course ther are cases wher people may be claiming it wrongly and have more sight and can cope quite well but this can easily be resolved by medical assesments and a doctors letter backing up their claims or not.
I see no need fora huge overhaul of the welfare system and the disabled benifit system at all. Just like the post i link to further up we all agree this is unessesary and heaps further missery on the less well off in this country.
To me it is a further attack on the poor and the weak. If we taxed the bankers a lot lot more and made sure to close the tax loop holes that certain companies seem to still be getting away with we could afford to support our elderly and disabled and sick properly like a proper modern country should do.
Please if you are against this move by the government and its proposals please look up my facebook page for keeping the disability living allowance
that is at the follwoing link http://is.gd/ii4D1
please join it and spread the word. If anyoen would like to help me start a campaign to protect DLA please do contact me through twitter or email
@markwrightuk88
or markwrightuk@gmail.com
many thanks for reading
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