Better Social Security Provision

15 January 2006

Social security is the UK is a mess. The system is slow, complex and ineffective.

It doesn't help the people who need help quickly, and it pays people to not work.

The system pays teenage girls to have babies and leave their parents. . That's one of the reasons why we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe - Girls can choose pregnancy as a goddamn career option!

Bloody great big problems...

The system has encouraged endemic laziness, and the attitude that the world owes one a living. It has furthered the breakdown of families and has made a huge contribution to the current high cost of housing by filling all the low-cost housing with people on benefits...

• There are about 5 million people of working age out of work in the UK.
  (The government boasts they have got '2 million more people into work' since coming to power. Reviewing the stats shows that the working population has increased by 2 million over the same period... They've done fuck-all.)
• The UK spends £4Bn a year on social security.
  (Although if you look at the 2006 budget - there's 151Bn under 'Social Protection' whatever that is - needs more investigation - when I ain't so busy trying to make a living...)
• The UK has the highest rate of teenage pregancy in Europe.
• The UK has the lowest pension in Europe.
• Many elderly are forced to sell their homes to pay for some of the poorest residential care in any developed country.
• Care in the community is practically non-existant.
• The bureaucracy is immense - from filling in the endless stupid forms to being forced into debt by being 'overpayed'.

I suggest a radical re-think of how social security is provided...

Exceptions

1. Someone may lose a home they have a mortgage on due to losing their job. In that case, the support should be available immediately, and should last no longer than 9 months. Currently you get no support for 9 months...
2. Some disabled folk may need special facilities, and if they couldn't be provided in a local center, the state should pay for private accomodation - as it does now...
3. There are probably other cases... But I can't think of any offhand.

Two steps to a simple solution...

Fixing the problems listed above is not as difficult as it sounds, but it does require a total change in how people think about what social security is there for and how it works...

As I see it - it's simple - the first thing it should provide is shelter and food - the very basics... If you're in need of those things, where do you go in England? Well, Here's a list of places the homeless can look for help in Cambridgeshire. It's nice to see there are quite a few - but they're all charities, and most seem to limit how long you can stay. The state does not currently provide these basic things they leave it to the charities...

Once we have these places where anyone can go and live in return for some work. Then, it's possible to stop paying people to not work or get pregnant...

• Step 1: Proper Community-Centers providing food and shelter on a permanent basis to whoever wants to stay there
• Step 2: Cessation of the practice of paying cash benefits.

So first, you provide a real 'safety-net' in the form of Community-Centers for people who genuinely need help - and you make it functional and a nice place to be. This is ALL NEW infrastructure which the country currently does not have...

Then you stop paying people cash...

Step 1: Proper Community-Centers

Every town should have a community-center, which is open to anyone (no means testing!), providing the following core facilities:

• Food
• Washing facilities & laundry
• Dormitory beds for visitors and whole rooms for permanent residents
• Communal living, and kitchen areas
• Communal work areas
• Garden for recreation and growing food
• Gym and Pool

These would be either state-run or independently managed as non-profit organisations. Only one paid employee is required, the remaining labour comes from the 'customers'.

These facilities would be provided at cost price, or in exchange for work. If a person was genuinely unable to contribute, services would be free - at the discretion of the manager.

So for example, a homeless person could get a meal, wash & a room for the night for 2-3 hours work in the community - i.e. washing up, gardening etc...

Self-Sufficiency

I strongly believe that self-sufficiency is the simplest and most effective way to make the UK environmentally sustainable...

Community-centers (and prisons), should be at least 75% self-sufficient for food, water and power.

Growing simple crops organically is easy and will provide better nutrition, at a lower cost, to the people making use of the center's services than buying the food from Tescos will. Besides, the whole point of the community center is that people work together to provide the things the community needs.

Standard integrated, organic farming practices can be used by the centers. Depending on scale, different techniques and mixtures of crops are available, from simply growing vegetables and keeping chickens to growing arable crops, dairy, pigs etc. Systems that will work are well described in sustainable agriculture literature - see Permaculture.

Growing food is not rocket science, and you get better quality food if you grow it organically yourself - It's a fact...

Care for the Elderly

In many cases, it would be beneficial to combine care-homes with community centers for the following reasons:

• It provides a real, mutually-dependant community from young to the old.
• The community itself will provide support.
• Economy of scale for infrastructure - kitchens etc.
• Quality of food

Other facilities

These services could all be offered to the public, all paid for by labour or cash if possible, otherwise free.

• Creche
• Laundry
• Drug Rehab / Needle Exchange
• Health & Care services
• Counselling services

Step 2: Stop Paying Cash Benefits

Lotta people gonna hate me for this one, I'm sure, but I have to speak my truths...

Fact: People don't need money to live IF they have food, shelter etc. I would never advocate turning off the cash until the community centers were in place.

Sure, it'll be damn inconvenient for quite a few people. Most of them will grumble and get jobs. Some will go and live in the community-centers... A few will still get cash.

You can't legislate for every case though - so as I have said on the law page - I'd like to see a court in which any case can be tried on common-sense - so if someone really needs cash from the government they should be able to get it...

Ten Years Later...

Ten years after enacting this legislation:

• Cost to govt. of social security: 100-300 Million/year (down from 4 Bn). This would be spent on maintenance & new community centers & infrastructure, supporting loss-making centers, paying exemptions. Paying salaries.
• Number of people out of work - 3 Million (down from 5 Million)
• Number of people living permanently in community centers: 3 Million +
• Number of people living occasionally in community centers: 1/2 Million
• Rate of teenage pregnancies down
• Housing availability improved. House prices down.
• Benefit fraud eliminated
• Tax revenues up

An Example...

Single mother of two.

Current situation: Living in rented accomodation, 5 miles from family, a bus-ride from the shops.

This lady has to do everything for herself. She has the pre-schoolers 24/7 all year round. She has to do all the washing, cleaning, cooking while trying to look after her kids and rarely gets to have a night out, unless her mum babysits. She's lonely and bored, she's desperate for adult company, but just spends her days doing the same things again and again.

This is the third flat she has lived in in eighteen months. It's smelly and dirty and she's not even supposed to hang any pictures up. She doesn't know how long she'll be here for.

New situation: Living in community center, 5 miles from family, a bus-ride from the shops.

This lady has 3 hours work to do today. She has to manage the creche for an hour, then spend an hour cleaning and another hour gardening - it's on the rota. She'll easily get that done in the morning, so she can spend some time in the afternoon working on the book she's writing and maybe go swimming with the kids in the pool.

The 3 hours work she has done has entitled her to all her meals for the day, 5 hours of creche. Someone else is doing the cleaning, cooking and kiddy care. She lives with her kids in a pair of rooms in the center - and she knows they will never kick her out.

She has the security of a permanent place to stay, a community of all ages to interact with, a clear way to contribute to the community. All work is shared, good food is provided.

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