A brief history of "welfare"

I've been considering this post for a while, but two things came together this morning to push me into writing it.  First there was this excellent piece by Zoe Williams on the Guardian website setting out her view that Iain Duncan Smith wants to end social security altogether.  Then there was a comment from Chris_2812 asking if I'd chosen my nom de plume for a reason.
So, here's a brief history of welfare / social security, and I'll get on to the future of it after that.  I am not bothering to check my facts here, so if I get something wrong, feel free to tell me.

Back in the days of small communities, right into what we call the Middle Ages, there was only the security of family and clan.  Those who could work, did.  Those who couldn't had to rely on the community.  For everyone who wasn't part of the elite there was the constant threat of famine and starvation.  Disease, injury and warfare took its toll, and most people died young by our standards.
The spread of Christianity, particularly of the monastic movement, provided a basic form of help.  The monasteries would give out food, provide a refuge and what healthcare was possible.  Wealthy individuals and craft guilds, as well as churches, set up "hospitals" for the "aged poor".  There was still famine if a harvest failed, and there were still warring aristocrats destroying what little you had, but the monasteries, convents and abbeys were the only source of help the poor had.  So when Henry VIII closed them all down in the 1530s and confiscated their wealth, the consequences were terrible.
The start of something we would recognise as a welfare system came in the reign of Elizabeth I, with the Poor Laws.  The unit of local government was the parish, and each was run by a committee or "vestry".  These were given the power to levy an annual rate on property and use the money to pay "relief" to those in need.  It could be humiliating to ask for this relief, of course, and you wouldn't get it if you were considered to be undeserving.  Nor would you get it if you didn't belong to that parish, so people who had travelled in search of work would be turfed out if they didn't find it.  If an unmarried mother sought relief, she had to name the father of the child, and the man was then served with a "bastardy order", forcing him to pay for the child's maintenance.  Parishes set up buildings known as Charity Halls, or, sometimes, workhouses to provide lodging for those who needed it.  The system lasted into the 19th century, but it was creaking by the end of the 18th.  In 1795 one parish, Speenhamland in Berkshire, devised a way of compensating agricultural labourers for falling wages and rising grain prices; they would top up the wages.  But the men who paid the rates were also the employers who paid the low wages, and they didn't see why they should subsidise someone else's wage bill.  So the system failed.
There had to be changes.  But this came at a time when the elites were increasingly fearful of the potential power of the masses.  The American War of Independence had been followed by the French Revolution.  The British government set up an effective network of spies and militias, and the increasing civil unrest was ruthlessly put down.  Poverty became increasingly prevalent with industrialisation, and there were many riots and protests.  There was also growing agitation for electoral reform.  This atmosphere resulted in a blueprint for the system of "relief" which was based on making it as unattractive as possible.  In 1834 parishes were combined into unions, each of which set up a workhouse.  These would be the only source of relief.  (In fact, there was always some form of "out-relief" which paid a pittance to paupers who were not in the workhouse.)  The regime in these places was notorious.  Men and women were separated, so elderly couples who had been married for many years were forced apart.  Children were effectively sold as apprentices to the factory and mill owners.  Adult paupers were put to work on humiliating physical labour.  Yet these places were the only resort for those who could not fend for themselves.  The system lasted well into the 20th century, and most of us have ancestors who died in the workhouse.  When I was a child, old people would still talk about claiming benefits as "going on the parish".
The start of change came in 1908 with the Old Age Pensions Act.  Some, but by no means all, elderly people were given small pensions which kept them out of the workhouse.  In 1911 came the National Insurance Act.  People in work paid their "stamp" to ensure that, for a limited period, they would be paid if they were sick or unemployed.  As the century went on, a system of social security grew.  There were means-tested payments for those who didn't qualify for the NI-based, or contributory, benefits.  This means-testing wasn't just about any money you had in the bank.  Inspectors would come to your home and assess what assets you had, even down to the quality of the clothes you were wearing.  Sickness benefits grew up separately.  For some reason, it was always thought that a sick person needed more money to live on than someone who was simply out of work.  These higher payments provided an incentive to "go sick" rather than claim unemployment benefit, and this suited governments at times because the sick were not counted in the unemployment figures.  Disability benefits also grew piecemeal.
The last Conservative government (which fell in 1997) tried to make some changes.  The contributory benefits were kept low while the non-contributory "income support" rose, thus destroying the whole concept of contributory benefits.  They introduced tests for people on disability benefits; and they were planning to stop housing benefits for single people living alone.  The incoming Labour government stopped this.  Labour brought in tax credits for some categories of workers, to top up poor wages (with much the same effect as the Speenhamland system); but they also chipped away at the concept of "income support" as the minimum which anyone needed to live on, by turning emergency grants into crisis loans.  The current government has ditched the concept altogether.  I don't need to go into what else the current government has done.

I hope this quick gallop through history sets the scene for considering the future of social security.

What about A4e?

That was the question asked by a friend, who noticed that this blog has veered off into the territory of welfare changes rather than focussing on the company.  There's a good reason for that.  A4e is attracting very little publicity and isn't seeking it.  How different from when Emma Harrison was in charge!
But attention needs to turn to all the companies delivering the Work Programme.  You may have noticed that in all the recent coverage of the changes, no politician has mentioned the WP.  And no journalist has asked the obvious questions.  Since the Work Programme is a failure, why are you still pouring money into it?  And why are you painting the unemployed as idle, not "doing the right thing" (and much worse), when your scheme to help them into work has proved useless?
We don't know whether A4e's finances have improved in the last 12 months.  It seems unlikely.  They are still advertising for staff in the same language as in the past.  There's an advert for an Advisor (Skills) Work Programme on the jobandtalent site (I don't know whether it's also on UJM) which talks about "individual, tailored support for each customer" and also "sales leads" and "sales calls", which is an odd way of describing contacts with employers.  We also get "A4e's DNA: Trusted, Passionate, Driven, Brave, Friendly and Caring" and "A4e's core mission is to improve people's lives".  I'm not mocking this.  It ought to be the reality.  But it's more than ever hollow, when there's no profit to be made and the struggle is just to keep the losses down.  
A4e, and all the providers, are almost certainly dealing with people who are increasingly angry and / or demoralised.  The government is determined to paint every benefits claimant as a drain on the taxpayer.  And now they have used the Philpott case to advance that idea.  As the Independent reports, Osborne is "questioning why taxpayers were funding 'lifestyles like that'".  Others are using it to call for cuts to child benefit.  And all of it after the disgusting Daily Mail opened the subject.  For a magnificent rebuttal to that, I applaud Zoe Williams in the Guardian.  

Mark Hoban interview

I've just watched an entertaining but infuriating interview with Mark Hoban on BBC's Newsight.
It started with a clip from the classic film Metropolis, a scene of mass forced labour.  It was then pointed out that 130,000 people have been "sanctioned" for not taking part in any of the 7 schemes affected by today's court ruling.  A Human Rights barrister said that they may have a right to compensation.  A TUC spokeswoman said that they support good quality work experience schemes, but not unpaid work in return for benefits.
Then the interviewer, Gavin Esler, turned to Mark Hoban and asked why his department was so incompetent.  It was rapidly clear that Hoban wanted to talk only about the vindication of the schemes themselves, not the court ruling.  They don't agree with the court, and want to be able to be flexible and respond quickly.  This is not a major blow, he said, it was "business as usual".  What provision has been made to repay people, Esler asked.  None, they're not going to pay.  (The interview was taking place against a backdrop of a scene of forced labour from Metropolis.)  Esler asked if people like Cait Reilly are workshy.  We offer help, said Hoban, not answering the question.  Then, astonishly, he uttered the phrase "tailored, personalised support".  When Esler put the contrary case, Hoban said that they were "very effective schemes in getting people into work".  I wanted Esler to bring up the DWP's own figures which show just how useless they are, but instead he turned to the Work Programme, and the 3.5% success in its first year.  Hoban repeated the phrase "personalised support".  So all the evidence that the WP offers nothing of the kind can be ignored by this government, and the same old lies can be propagated.
I agree completely with Zoe Williams in her Guardian piece: "All the statistics released about the Work Programme show execrable results, and yet we've heard nothing about penalties, or remaking the contracts, or rethinking the system. There is a creeping sense that this is turning into a cash cow for the private sector, a get-out-clause for the government ("we've spent all this money, if people can't get jobs despite our help, it's because they are inadequate"), and unemployed people will be left at the bottom, ceaselessly harassed by a totally specious narrative in which their laziness beggars a try-hard administration."

"Back-to-work scheme breached laws"

The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of Cait Reilly's contention that the government's unpaid work schemes are legally flawed.  There's the BBC's report here and the Guardian's here.  The latter says that the  scheme is "in tatters".  But let's not get carried away.
They're unlawful only because of "a lack of basic in  formation given to the unemployed".  They weren't given enough information about the penalties they faced or their rights to appeal.  Tens of thousands of people who have been sanctioned are entitled to "a rebate", but the DWP has said that it won't pay out until "all legal avenues" have been exhausted.  They're going to the Supreme Court.  Which all means that it's not the schemes themselves - MWA and the rest - which are unlawful, just the way the DWP went about it.  And they've already changed the paperwork.
Mark Hoban is cross.  He said: "The court has backed our right to require people to take part in programmes which will help get them into work. It's ridiculous to say this is forced labour. This ruling ensures we can continue with these important schemes.  We are, however, disappointed and surprised at the court's decision on our regulations. There needed to be flexibility so we could give people the right support to meet their needs and get them into a job. We do not agree with the court's judgment and are seeking permission to appeal, but new regulations will be tabled to avoid any uncertainty."

PS:  There's an excellent comment piece by Zoe Williams in the Guardian.

Scaremongering?

That was Mark Hoban's response to the Public Accounts Committee's roasting of the DWP for the misery caused by Atos.  The BBC reports it straightforwardly.  Margaret Hodge put the blame on the DWP rather than on the company, saying that it regarded the appeals process as an inherent part of the system, when it was actually damaging vulnerable people.  Hoban replied that they'd failed to recognise that changes had been made and that independent reports said that the whole thing was fundamentally sound.  Mind you, according to a tweet by Jonty Olliff-Cooper, Hoban has described Jobcentres as "the last vestige of the command and control economy", so are we to expect that they will soon be handed over for private profit?  (JOC calls this comment "pretty fruity from a minister", which must be public school speak for something I don't understand.)

There's an excellent article by Zoe Williams in the Guardian yesterday, in which she describes the "shadow state" created by the outsourcing of public services.  I won't quote from it because you need to read the whole of it.  Last week another Guardian article by Toby Lowe described payment by results as "a dangerous idiocy that makes staff tell lies".  Again, spot on.  And if we needed any more practical examples of how things can go spectacularly wrong, there's the report from the Commons Justice Committee on the "shambolic" situation with court translation services (something Private Eye has been going on about for ages) and the Care Quality Commission's report into Serco's out-of-hours doctor service in Cornwall, which failed the sick by not having enough staff to answer calls.

But all of this is presumably just scaremongering.